The Basics of Brokeback

As promised, here's the rundown on Brokeback Mountain, or "the gay cowboy movie" as some people are refering to it. The basic plot is this: It starts in 1963. Enis, played by Heath Ledger, gets a job herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain for a summer, hoping to save up money for his wedding that November. The other man working with him is Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhall. One night up on the mountain they get drunk...and then you can probably figure out what happens. They spend the summer on the mountain together with just them and the sheep, and they develop a very close relationship over the months - physically and otherwise. They go down from the mountain and part ways. Enis gets married and has a couple of kids. Four years later he gets a postcard from Jack saying he's coming through town. Enis' wife sees them kissing, though they don't know she sees them. From that point on, once or twice a year they go on "fishing trips" to Brokeback. But it was from that point that the damage was done. Enis eventually gets a divorce and can never live a fully normal life.

This paragraph reveals the end of the movie. If you don't want to know the end, skip to the next paragraph. Finally, years later on one of their "fishing trips" he confronts Jack about it, and they end up parting ways for good. After this Enis finds out that Jack has died in a car accident or something of that nature (he was filling a flat tire, he over-filled it and the hubcap flew off and hit him in the head or something like that.) Enis goes to visit Jack's parents and offers to take his ashes to Brokeback Mountain, where Jack had wanted his ashes spread. They say no, they have a family plot where he will be buried. But Jack's mother offers to Enis to go up to Jack's old room. There he finds one of his own old shirts from their first summer at Brokeback that Jack has kept all these years. He takes it home with him, and the movie ends with him just saying, "Jack, I swear..." and looking at his old shirt.

Now, I didn't really care for the ending. I thought it ended rather abruptly and didn't bring any sort of closure to anything at all. That said, it was a decently good movie. It was however far from being a great movie. In fact, I believe the only reason it's getting all the awards and attention that it's getting is because of it's homosexual themes. My problem with the movie was not that it was gay, but that it was being hailed as this wonderful movie that holds this epic love story. But gay or not, I don't consider an epic love story to be one person ruining another person's life. In fact, neither character showed any inclination of actually being in love. The movie, as I saw it, only showed that they both had this physical need for homosexual interaction. If it had been more of a Romeo and Juliet "star-crossed lovers" thing, then I might have liked it more.

It's my belief that the people who are protesting this movie probably wouldn't protest it if they actually saw it. Or rather, if they actually saw the whole thing and didn't walk out during the first intimate scene between the two characters. Now, I realize that everyone views things differently, and some people might really love this movie. But the movie I saw was not a gay cowboy movie, but a movie about a man whose life is ruined when he acts on a physical desire which is not healthy considering he is about to be married when he first acts on it. It causes a sort of addiction which leads him to live a half-life, not willing to fully give himself over to his wife or to his lover. The fact that his lover is a man holds no precedence in this case. You could replace Jake Gyllenhall with a woman, and change his wife (a great performance by Anne Hathaway and a wonderful departure from her usual "Princess Diaries" type role) to her husband, and it wouldn't change my opinion of the film one iota.

In conclusion, I would say it's worth seeing, if only to see what all the hype is about. But I would also add that it's worth seeing for the "bargain matinee price" that I paid for it, or at the discount theater. I think if I had paid regular movie price for it I would have been more disappointed that it was only "good" and not "great."