Dantrums

Last week my mother told me she'd seen "Brokeback Mountain" and liked it. She asked me what I thought of it. I said I hadn't seen it, and she looked shocked. Her reaction was cute in a way--- she assumed since I'm gay I must've been rushing out the door to see it. She was half right, but her reaction was also naive in a way that irritated me, and instead of letting it pass, I snapped, "Are you going to be first in line for the new movie about the friendless, boring Jewish suburbanites?"

Anyways, now I've seen it, and my reaction is: Eh. It was good. In parts it was very moving, but I'd wanted it to make me cry. I'm not going to critique it. But I will say this: Fuck Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and the horse he rode in on. Jack Twist was right. They could have had a nice life together. Yes, Ennis had kids and a wife and so did Jack. But the bottom line is they were supposed to be together. "I ain't no queer," says Ennis. "Me neither," says Jack. Fine, call yourselves whatever you'd like, but even Ennis, underneath his shuffling, simple-boy facade, understood that they worked. One might call his devotion to his kids noble, except that until the rather random final scene, he barely seems interested in having a relationship with them. So his kids are not what holds him back, nor is his wife, who he prefers to do up the ass....like the queer that he so fucking obviously is. What I loved about Jake Gyllenhaal's performance is that even when he's fucking his wife for the first time in the back of a pickup his expression is one of curiosity, not sexuality. Can I even fuck this? he seems to be asking himself. I loved that. That's exactly what I used to think when I was messing around down there.
Ennis thinks, and thus feels, much less, and he can treat Jack cooly with few ill effects (Ennis is the top after all). Well, he does dry heave once. Poor dear. But Jack pays for his wide eyed optimism with years of heartbreak and tears. Here's what's great: When Jack dies Ennis is left with huge feelings of guilt. And for good reason. You should've told him how you really felt you mumbling, self- hating shmuck. In the first scene of E. Annie Proulx's book, a broken, middle-aged Ennis lives alone in a trailer, waking up every morning to the sight of he and Jack's old shirts nestled together on a hangar. It's proof that ultimately he shared Jack's dream. Instead he chose a life of lies and surface normality. In the process he fucked up his life, Jack's life, and the lives of the women who loved them. The movie's final point is indeed powerful: Love is inevitable; it can never be buried completely. With Jack dead, and, in a sense, released from the hell of unrequited love, to Ennis falls the life of sorrow and remorse. I say good. Cry Ennis. Bawl your fucking eyes out. You had your shot at happiness. "I ain't no queer." You said it, Ennis. Better dead than red. To all the rest posing as mere pussy lovers out there: Keep up the good work.

ps, favorite line: When Ennis's wife Alma spits out, "Jack Twist? Jack Nasty!"