Brokeback Mountain (2005) Movie Info
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Brokeback Mountain (2005) |
| Director | Ang Lee |
| Screenplay Writer | Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana |
| Based on Novel by | Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain — short story) |
| Lead Actors | Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal |
| Cast | Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid |
| Genre | Romance, Drama |
| Release Date | December 9, 2005 (USA) |
| Duration | ~2h 14m (134 minutes) |
| Budget | ~$14 million (estimated) |
| Language | English |
| Country | United States |
| Box Office (Worldwide) | ~$178 million |
Brokeback Mountain (2005) Ratings
| Platform | Rating |
|---|---|
| IMDb | ⭐ 7.7 / 10 |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Critics) | 🍅 88% Tomatometer |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Audience) | 🍿 82% Popcornmeter |
| Metacritic | 🎬 87 / 100 |
| Letterboxd | ⭐ 4.2 / 5 |
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Summary
A drama in the 1960s and based on the Annie Proulx novel about a forbidden relationship between two cowboys and their lives over the years.
Review
I just saw the movie. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger have some major balls (“Gyllenballs,” if you will). This movie is in a special pantheon of movies in my book, of which there are only three others. They include The Doors, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Closer. Why is Brokeback Mountain connected with those others? Why, they are movies that were excellent, engrossing, and well-acted. They are also movies I will never watch again because they are so painful. I remember after Ripley, I was alone in a convenience store with some other customer and the attendant was in the back, and I was wondering to myself if I should kill him and hide the body.
Movies like this affect you.
But I digress. This movie is done really well, and Ledger will definitely be nominated for an Academy Award. He’s got fantastically repressed body language, not to mention the fact that he somehow lowered his voice into a young Buffalo Bill. Gyllenhaal does pretty well, too (I couldn’t recall really seeing him in a movie before this year, and oddly enough, as I just turned on the TV to see that he was the main character in the movie Bubble Boy.) If you haven’t heard much about the movie, I think you’re full of shit because you’re reading this on the Internet. So there’s no way. But just for the heck of it, it’s about two men, Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal), who meet when they spend an entire summer together on a mountain watching a flock of sheep. It’s just those two alone all summer, and they end up making a life-long connection after a life-changing event one night.
Due to this connection in the 1963 midwest, they obviously don’t tell people about their relationship. Years go by, they each get married, but once or twice a year they get together for “a fishing trip.” Ennis’ wife suspects something is up because the fishing pole in his case never seems to be used (insert “fishing pole” joke here). Ennis uncharacteristically livens up every time Jack shows up, and oh yeah the first time she ever lays eyes on Jack, he’s making out with her husband in the front stairway. She deals with it as best she can, but the fact that he suspiciously leaves for the weekend with his friend every now and then (and that she saw them practically blowing each other in public) gets to her. Also, Ennis spins her around to look at the back of her head when they’re having sex. I’m sure in the deleted scenes Ennis is whispering things to her in his Buffalo Bill voice like, “Tell me about rodeo riding,” or “Say that your balls itch.”
But that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that this isn’t just a gimmicky movie. It’s actually an excellent story. It’s not graphic with the man-love, but does show a few parts that are necessary. Check that, some of it’s graphic, but considering what the movie is about, they do a good job with keeping it from distracting audiences. I was actually curious as to how they would deliver the big scene, but they do it pretty well. And by “well” I mean that you will grit your teeth and squeeze the hell out of your girlfriend in horror for a minute or two.
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