IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, BRIEF ENCOUNTER), but never involving two men, and never this brutally honest. The simple yet deceptive story of two people who meet, fall in love, but are unable to fulfill their love has been done over and over again from the male-female perspective (i. It was only time before a film about two men in love would get the treatment it gets in Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, since up to now, films had either skirted the subject, reduced it to a peripheral, sanitized version of itself or given it the eye-candy treatment only meant at making a quick impression in the "Gay-Lesbian" category. "Jack, I swear," was always a line that floored me when I was watching it but now it's at a point where just thinking of the line and the way that Ledger delivers it brings some water to my eyes. It's a performance unlike any other out there and in the end it's one that brings me to my knees. You see the pain in this person living a lie in every moment we have with him, with that turned in mouth and speech pattern that always sounds like it's hurting him to let anything out because he's afraid of how people are going to react. This character is an incredibly difficult one to take on, he could have easily been someone who was hard to like or sympathize with due to his internalizing and his refusal to fully embrace the relationship and who he is, but that's what makes it hit even harder, thanks to Ledger's brutal work. Heath Ledger is completely gone and from the very beginning of the film we have Ennis and we have him until the very end. Gyllenhaal is Jack and hits the surface notes expertly, but you can still see Jake Gyllenhaal in there. He becomes this character in such a vivid way that you don't even recognize the actor inside the role anymore. It's Ledger, of course, who steals the show though, with a kind of transcendent performance that we're treated to maybe once a decade. Gyllenhaal's openness is beautiful, his determination to make the love work and to just exist the way he wants to, he definitely provides the emotional anchor for the film and gives a heartbreaking portrayal. Their characters take the love in different forms, Ennis fighting himself over it and Jack fighting the world because of it, but both actors capture exactly what they need to and bring this magnetism that really sparks. A lot of this lies in the writing, but of course the performances from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal certainly play a key factor in capturing it. You can't walk away from it because it's like an addiction and I think this film more than any before it captures that remarkably. How there are times where you can hate the person you love, hate so many things about them and hate that you are in love with them, but you can't give it up at all. It's nontraditional because it's two people fighting against the love and it's accuracy in this is startling. It's a love film told non-traditionally, but not because it's two men, that doesn't even factor into the depiction of it. Almost immediately it hit me harder than it had before and after a day since I watched it, the pain and heartache I experienced during it still remains at my core. It had been about five years since I'd seen the film, and in that time I have grown up a lot, fallen in love, had my heart ripped to shreds and fallen back in love again and I think this growth personally has really opened me up to a place in my mind and heart to embrace this film more than most other screen romances that exist. I would get attached while watching it, but all of those feelings would leave me fairly soon afterward. I've always admired this film to a certain extent, but I think the thing that always kept me from loving it was that it never resonated with me emotionally.
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