Rating: 3.5/5
Anti-Criterion Challenge 2024 | 27/52 | director’s highest-rated film (Ang Lee)
If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it
Ennis steps out of an 18-wheeler. Jack pulls up in an old piece-of-shit truck. The two look at each other but try to hide it. They meet Joe at his office for a job.
Joe hires them to herd his sheep through the summer up on Brokeback Mountain. Jack is coming back for a second year doing the job.
The two set up camp and get the knack of caring for the sheep. On a cold night, after polishing off a bottle of whiskey, the two share a tent to keep warm. Jack makes a move on Ennis, and Ennis fucks Jack in the ass — no lube, no effort.
After they both declare they aren’t queer the following day, they kiss. But Joe catches them and sends them off the mountain.
Their performances aren’t outstanding, especially from Gyllenhaal. They’re doing Oscar acting. It’s a shame we’ve seen both of them do better.
Michelle Williams is incredible and heartbreaking. Anne Hathaway has an accent, alright.
When Linda Cardellini showed up, I gasped.
The landscapes are beautiful. The colors are impossibly lush when they’re happy and a cold blue when they aren’t.
In the end, it’s a very straight conception of gay love. When we were starving for representation, it was essential. Now, it’s a good movie, but here in 2024, it doesn’t hit the way it might have twenty years ago.