“Brokeback Mountain” is your typical Hollywood love story: passionate love-making, intimate moments between lovers, heartache and tragedy… except for the fact that it is all between two men.
In 1963, Ennis Del Mar, played by Heath Ledger, and Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, take on a job guarding a flock of sheep on Brokeback Mountain. Ledger plays a loner, a simple man of few words. Gyllenhaal plays an energetic, youthful cowboy who aspires to be a rodeo rider.
They spend their days on the mountain with only the company of the wilderness and each other. One night, when it is too cold for either man to sleep outside, they nestle together in a tent next to the fire. This is the night they make passionate, yet unexpected, love. The graphic sexual act, as well as the passion they mutually express, shock Jack and Ennis as much as the audience.
As long days and nights pass on the mountain, they continue to make love to one another. However, they discuss that neither of them classify themselves as “queer,” something unacceptable in their society at the time.
When the job on Brokeback Mountain comes to an end, they pack up and head on their own separate paths. Ennis returns home to marry his fiancé, played by Michelle Williams, have two little girls, and work to support his family.
While Jack tries to make his dream of becoming a rodeo rider a reality, he meets a woman, played by Anne Hathaway, whom he marries and settles down with as well.
The audience watches as these two men transform into what society expects of them, and for a short while, set aside their seemingly unacceptable lifestyle they lived on Brokeback Mountain. The question of how and when they will next encounter one another adds suspense to this mild and narrative part of the movie.
After a few years pass, Ennis receives a postcard of a picture of Brokeback Mountain from Jack. Jack drives from his home in Texas to reunite with Ennis and they head off for a “fishing” trip on the mountain that they once worked on. Their sense of longing for their suppressed feelings they experienced is overwhelmingly brought out in this scene through their aggressive kissing and groping.
The movie takes you on a long yet realistic journey through the separate lives of these two men who struggle to find happiness in a society that is unwilling to let them live truthfully for themselves.
You feel what these men have to struggle with even if you are the polar opposite of them. It’s not just a movie about two gay men. It’s a story about two gay men struggling to be who they are in a world that won’t let them. It’s a story that allows you to feel that struggle.
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