Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), meet in the summer of 1963, when they, by chance, both show up to look for work as shepherds on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. They are both hired, and spend the summer together atop the mountain, where their affair begins. Even though I knew the story, that part still caught me by surprise. Leading up to it, they don't speak to each other much, mostly because Ennis is a man of very few words. And, it isn't clear that they are attracted to each other at first. So, when, after a few days and a few shots of whiskey, they have sex, it's a little surprising. The scene is completely unromantic. There is no soft lighting or background music. It actually borders on violent. Afterwards, Ennis tells Jack that he "ain't no queer," and that it's a "one shot thing." Jack agrees. But it's not. The summer ends, and both boys go back to their lives, Ennis in Wyoming and Jack in Texas. Years pass, both get married and have children. But sometimes, Jack visits Ennis in Wyoming, and the two go on "fishing trips."
On one of these visits, Ennis' wife Alma (Michelle Williams), catches Ennis and Jack kissing. She doesn't say anything, but she does notice that Ennis never brings home any fish. From there, it's not hard for her to put two and two together, but she shoulders the burden of knowing that her husband is not in love with her, but with another man silently for a long time. Eventually, Ennis and Alma get a divorce. She still hasn't said that she know about Ennis and Jack, but Ennis probably knows. Williams' performance in this role is excellent. She particularly stands out in a couple of scenes. In one, Ennis is leaving on one of his "fishing trips," but he's left his tackle box behind. "Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" she asks. He comes back in, gives her a kiss, and leaves. Without picking up the tackle box. By this point, she already knows about Ennis and Jack, and this is just further confirmation for her. In the moment that the camera lingers on her, I could feel that knowledge weighing on her and imagine how much it must hurt. The other is a scene in which she finally tells Ennis that she knows he wasn't fishing with Jack. They are already divorced, and she is remarried, but Ennis has come over to have Thanksgiving dinner with her and his daughters. While they are alone in the kitchen, Alma tells Ennis that she once left him a note in his tackle box: "Please bring home some fish." After Ennis returned home, without any fish, she saw that the note was untouched. In one of his most expressive moments in the film, Ennis angrily grabs her by the arm. She is frightened, and yells at him to leave. It is clear that, though she has moved on since the divorce, she must have truly loved Ennis, maybe she still does, and that his betrayal of their marriage still hurts her.
That scene is a big one for Ennis too, as it's one of the only times we get to see him be really emotional. If the movie didn't focus so closely on Ennis and Jack, we might not get to know Ennis at all, he is so guarded. Ledger shows that in every facet of Ennis. It shows in the way Ennis carries himself throughout the movie, in the way he speaks, and in what he says. Physically, he always seems to be pulling into himself. He doesn't say much, and when he does speak, it's through almost closed lips. There are only a few scenes in which he lets his guard down, and most of those happen when no other characters are present. In one though, he reveals something to Jack that tells us as the audience a lot about why he is the way he is. He tells Jack that when he was just a kid, there were two men in town who were living together. One day, those two men were found beaten to death, and Ennis' father made sure that he and his brother saw the bodies. "Hell," he says, "for all I know, he {Ennis' father} did it." So, from a very young age, he was taught to believe that the way he felt was wrong. That he wasn't supposed to be the way he was. It's a pivotal moment, not just because it helps the audience understand Ennis as a character, but also because he is doing something uncharacteristic by sharing it. There is a scene at the end of the movie, after Jack has died, in which Ennis breaks down while going through Jack's room during a visit to his parents. He actually cries. It's unexpected from a man who for most of the film goes out of his way to hide his feelings.
Jack accepts himself more readily than Ennis, which is most likely why he is always the one going out of his way to visit Ennis, making a greater effort to keep their relationship alive. Ennis is terrified of being found out, while Jack seems much less concerned about it. That fact made his character arc a little less interesting, for me at least, because he didn't seem to have the same inner conflict that Ennis had. He's likable, and it's heartbreaking when he dies, but at least some of that comes from Ennis' reaction to it. That is also the scene that stood out most to me for Lureen (Anne Hathaway), Jack's wife. Ennis calls her to find out what happened to Jack, and as she tells Ennis about how Jack was trying to change a tire and it exploded, causing the hubcap to fly into his face, breaking his nose and leaving him lying unconscious in a pool of his own blood. By the time he was found, it was too late. During the story, we see Jack getting beaten to death with a tire iron, just like the two men from Ennis' youth. I couldn't help but wonder, was that what really happened, or is that Ennis' imagination. The scene stood out for Lureen's character for me because it was the first time I wondered whether she knew, or at least suspected, anything about the relationship between Jack and Ennis.
I really like character driven stuff like this, which I suppose is why I had so much to say about it. More than I thought I would. As far as I'm concerned, all the special effects in the world can't hold a candle to really great characters portrayed by really solid actors. Explosions and car chases and whatnot can be fun, but if you have engaging characters and a good story, you don't need all those bells and whistles. I really appreciated that about this film. That and the underlying message about love and acceptance. Sometimes, I just need to see something that reminds me that true love can survive anything, even when it's far from perfect or comes from an unexpected place. The fact that this happens to involve a gay couple brings to mind everything that has been in the news recently about gay rights. Granted, that has been overshadowed by the "zombie attack" stories, but it's still an important issue. This story starts in 1963, and homosexuality was harshly persecuted at that time. As a society, I think we like to think we've come a long way since then, but, in this particular issue, I'm not so sure that we have. And that is devastating to me. It isn't anyone's place to judge another person for who they fall in love with. We should be celebrating the fact that they were able to find love at all. Or at least letting them celebrate it.
But I digress. And knowing the people who are most likely to be reading this, I expect I'm just preaching to the choir anyway. Next on the list is a very long movie about Mozart.
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