This story of suppressed passion is, irrespective of gender considerations, a deeply moving, indeed lacerating, film.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
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Reviews Counted:225
Fresh:194
Rotten:31
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: A beautifully epic Western, Brokeback Mountain's gay love story is embued with heartbreaking universality, helped by the moving performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal.
Theatrical Release:06-01-2006
Synopsis: From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story, based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by the team of... From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story, based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men – a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy – who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love. Early one morning in Signal, Wyoming, Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). The world which Ennis and Jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland – obtaining steady work, marrying and raising a family – and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy. At summer's end, the two must come down from Brokeback and part ways. Remaining in Wyoming, Ennis weds his sweetheart Alma (Michelle Williams), with whom he will have two daughters as he ekes out a living. Jack, in Texas, catches the eye of a rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). Their courtship and marriage result in a son, as well as jobs in her father's business. Four years pass. One day, Alma brings Ennis a postcard from Jack, who is en route to visit Wyoming. Ennis waits expectantly for his friend, and when Jack at last arrives, in just one moment it is clear that the passage of time has only strengthened the men's attachment. In the years that follow, Ennis and Jack struggle to keep their secret bond alive. They meet up several times annually. Even when they are apart, they face the eternal questions of fidelity, commitment and trust. Ultimately, the one constant in their lives is a force of nature – love. -- © Focus Features [More]
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, Valerie Planche
Director: Ang Lee
Director: Ang Lee
Screenwriter: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana
Producer: Diana Ossana, James Schamus
Composer: Gustavo Santaolalla
Studio: Focus Features
Reviews for Brokeback Mountain
[Ang] Lee gets to the heart of this complex relationship -- and the equally complex relationships surrounding it -- with a cinematic clarity and stark directness we rarely get from movies these days.
Heath Ledger's Ennis is like an old mule that refuses to leave the path in front of him. The destination is tragedy.
I was never moved or even overly excited by what I finally witnessed on the screen, though I have no quarrel with the superlatives heaped upon the film by most of my colleagues.
A love story that in another time might have been less tragic, which makes it all the more sad for what could have been
This year's Million Dollar Baby, it's a similarly plainspoken, straightforward little masterpiece of heartbreak and regret.
A good film should be able to transcend cultural and social mores and lose the viewer in the story with both empathy and sympathy and "Brokeback Mountain" does it.
A lyrical tone poem of a movie that's a haunting tribute to the great frontiers of love.
It's a brave and affecting effort from a director from whom we have come to expect worthwhile things.
Exquisitely shot and vast in its emotional take on forbidden love, Brokeback Mountain is compassionate and compelling in its risqué examination of perceived manhood.
Profound. Transcendent. Heartbreaking. Brokeback Mountain is a cinematic triumph of incendiary depth and poeticism.
In two of the best performances of the year -- both deserve Oscar nominations -- Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play a pair of bittersweet lovers.
Anchored by the performances of the two leads, the power of 'Brokeback Mountain' is retained despite the film's unneccesary bloat, convincing in its tale of love and the severe penalties imposed by societal homphobia.
certainly not what most would define as 'queer cinema,' but instead a most contemporary Western, a thing of raw, aching beauty.
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