An ultimately moving, universally human story about the pain caused when certain stigmas within society prevent people from expressing who they really are.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Tomatometer
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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.
Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $82,970,165
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
Lee has taken a story of gay love and placed it where it should be -- in the mainstream. Hes delivered a beautifully crafted film to boot.
The story-telling is so plain and straightforward that, like the characters' feelings for one another, at first you do not realize how powerful it is.
...you can't take the 'gay' out of the 'gay cowboy' movie. What gives Brokeback Mountain its punch is the (no pun intended) straight way in which its romance is told.
[Lee] makes Brokeback Mountain intimate and specific, so it feels like the story of the frail human beings involved in one particular romance, not like a political movie about An Issue.
A sweeping, solemn, self-serious chronicle of their relationship over several decades.
If you haven't read the story before you see the movie, read it after. And then go see what is arguably the year's best movie.
It stays with you after you've seen it, like a haunting strain of music; both love song and elegy for what might have been.
[Ledger's] character is much more laconic, self-contained and folksy in the McMurtry tradition, yet he communicates an inner pathos that's uniquely, profoundly touching. It's the year's most haunting and unforgettable performance.
This is true cinematic grandeur, earned over time and always deepening the film's themes.
It is particularly affecting to watch Heath Ledger's portrayal of a man struggling along the road of life with the wrong map, a man thunderstruck to discover that a secret sharer, a soul mate, could even be in the realm of the possible for him.
It has become shorthand to call Brokeback Mountain the 'gay cowboy movie,' but it is much more than that glib description implies. This is a human story, a haunting film in the tradition of the great Hollywood romantic melodramas.
A film about love and the cost of lying that's exquisite in its beauty, painful in its truths.
The movie has a universal quality because it tells a story of unfulfilled lives and roots it in the well-observed specifics of a vanishing Western culture.
Like these indelible cowboys, you, too, may find it impossible not to succumb to the powerful, quiet greatness that is Brokeback Mountain.
Brokeback Mountain the power to break your heart -- and, perhaps more important, to open it.
With its measured pace and its sumptuous visuals, transforming a taboo into a romantic totem, this opening act is fascinating, like watching Red River with the subtext cranked way up.
If love does indeed conquer all, it should win hearts across America. If not, then its focus on a tragic stigma will remain as valid as its story suggests.
Latest News for Brokeback Mountain
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
James Schamus might be a workaholic. If it's not enough that he's the head of Focus Features -- the independent imprint of Universal -- he's also an established producer and... More...
November 12, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Ang Lee
The rule that no two Ang Lee movies are ever the same is confidently kept intact with the release of his latest, Taking Woodstock, a comedy about the true story behind the... More...
January 29, 2008:
No Country for Old Men Takes Top Honors at SAG Awards
Blessed with a waiver by its striking brethren in the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild was able to turn Sunday's SAG Awards ceremony into one of the only "real" awards... More...
January 22, 2008:
Heath Ledger: 1979-2008
Heath Ledger, star of films including Brokeback Mountain, 10 Things I Hate About You, and the forthcoming The Dark Knight, was found dead this afternoon. He was 28. More...
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