The story is set in 1963 Wyoming and traces the lives of two cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) who develop a love affair on the lonely heights of Brokeback Mountain where they come to work together one summer.
Frankly, I didn’t think much of the performance. Ledger seemed to be only playing a cowboy version of himself, with a drone that was hard to decipher.
Having said that, there are moments of epiphany (the ones that melted the Academy’s hearts, presumably). Chief among them is the final scene in which Ennis is visited by his daughter Alma Jr. at his pad. Alma (Kate Mara in a short, sensitive role) has come to inform her father of her wedding. After she leaves, Ennis discovers she has left her cardigan behind.
Ledger picks it up, folds it neatly, and keeps it in the cabinet. His oppressive loneliness in the face of the motions of daily life that one performs is a dark reminder of the unflinching power of memory to haunt the soul. It takes grit on the viewer’s part to deal with a man breaking down for a piled load of missed chances. The denouement crushes one to the core.
The best acting issued forth from Michelle Williams, who plays Alma, Ennis’s wife. Her hurt and rage at having been cheated by her husband is instinctive and very real. Her hostile demeanour stands out for its verisimilitude.
Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, who plays Jack’s wife, are good, though the latter is heavily underutilised despite her high glamour quotient.
Overall, Brokeback Mountain is a movie that’s not to be missed. It’s an excellent human story that kills you with its lingering sorrow. The kind of film you are anxious thinking about for fear of the pain its recollection entails.