Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Released in 2005 and based on Annie Proulx's short story of the same name, Brokeback Mountain arrived at a particular moment in American cultural life, when the conversation around LGBTQ+ rights and representation in mainstream cinema was shifting, slowly and unevenly, but shifting nonetheless. The story, set across several decades from the early 1960s, follows two young ranch hands who form a bond while working together on a Wyoming mountainside, a connection that neither man is fully equipped to understand or accept, and which neither can simply walk away from. Proulx's story had been published in The New Yorker in 1997 and collected in her anthology Close Range, and its adaptation for the screen was a long time in the making, passing through several hands before landing with director Ang Lee. That it got made at all, by a major distributor (Focus Features, with co-production from River Road Entertainment and Alberta Film Entertainment), with a mainstream cast and a genuine awards campaign behind it, was itself something worth noting at the time.

Ang Lee is a director whose career resists easy categorisation. He is as comfortable working in period drama as he is in action spectacle, and his facility with landscapes, both physical and emotional, is a consistent thread across his work. Those familiar with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will recognise his instinct for letting environment carry meaning, for finding the interior life of a scene in its physical surroundings rather than spelling everything out. Here, the Wyoming and Alberta locations (much of the filming took place in Canada) do a great deal of work quietly and without fuss. The production runs to 134 minutes, a pace that feels considered rather than indulgent, and Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana's screenplay earns its length.

The four principal performances are central to why the film holds up so well. Heath Ledger, who had already shown considerable range before this role, brings a kind of physical containment to Ennis Del Mar that is not easy to pull off, the impression of a man folded in on himself without ever becoming a cipher. Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist is warmer and more outwardly expressive, which makes the dynamic between the two men feel genuinely complementary rather than repetitive. Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, as the wives caught in the orbit of this relationship, are both given more to do than the supporting billing might suggest. Randy Quaid rounds out a cast that, on the whole, feels well matched to the material. Ledger in particular went on to demonstrate just how wide his range was, as anyone who has seen his work in The Dark Knight will know, and his performance here stands as one of the more remarkable pieces of screen acting from that decade. For a point of comparison in terms of the romance drama genre, the site's review of Call Me by Your Name is worth reading alongside this one.

Watching Brokeback Mountain for the first time with my girlfriend and her mum was… not the move I thought it would be as a 16 year old boy. The film’s reputation doesn’t always prepare you for just how raw and intimate it is. The sex scenes are brief but undeniably graphic, and there’s a quiet, aching sensuality throughout that makes them feel deeply personal rather than sensational. It’s a film that doesn’t shy away from the physical reality of love, which only strengthens its emotional weight. At its heart, this is a deeply moving story about two men, Ennis and Jack, whose connection on a remote Wyoming mountainside in 1963 grows into something they can neither fully embrace nor escape. The years that follow are filled with repression, obligation, and quiet sorrow. A life half-lived. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal deliver performances of remarkable subtlety and depth, especially Ledger, whose emotional restraint speaks volumes. You feel every unspoken word, every glance loaded with longing. It’s not just a landmark film for LGBTQ+ representation, it’s a tragic love story told with honesty, dignity, and a haunting sense of inevitability. Ang Lee directs with a gentle hand, letting the landscape mirror the characters’ isolation and the score swell with melancholy. It’s progressive not because it’s bold, but because it treats this love as ordinary, real, fragile, and devastating. Just maybe don’t watch it with your partner’s mum.

I keep coming back to that phrase, "a life half-lived," because it feels like the truest way to describe what Lee puts on screen. The film earns its reputation not through any grand statement but through accumulation, the slow build of years, seasons, and reunions that become rarer and more painful. It is the kind of film that does not announce its intentions and is all the better for that restraint. If you have been putting it off, perhaps because the cultural weight of the thing feels like a lot to walk into, I would say: just watch it. It is quieter than its reputation suggests, and more honest than most films that tackle love of any kind. Just, as I have learned, choose your viewing companions wisely.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 2005  | Watched: 2025-07-29

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Trailer

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More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
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