Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal reach deep down to play two gay cowboys who fall in love and they don't care what anyone thinks. They have an undeniable chemistry and play so well off of each other you might have really thought they were old fishing buddies. Their playful nature translates very well on screen, but the funny part of their chemistry is they convey their emotions without hardly saying anything. I have never been deafened by so much silence in a film. The silence in this film could practically fill up a room.

It could be the silence, but also the risk factor that makes these performances so brave and alluring. They are going against type. The fact that this project was in development hell for so long, only marquee names could have gotten the project off the ground and it did. If this was two ugly unknown actors, do you really think that this project would have been made and garnered so much attention? No, although it really is the supporting cast that truly fills out the rest of the film.

Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) brings give one of the most honest and searing performances of the year in my opinion. She plays the jilted wife Alma who discovers her husband's deepest and darkest secret is her biggest nightmare. She has such an intensity as Alma, that she manages to hold her own against a very powerful Ledger. You can almost hear her heart break when she sees her husband kiss another man, and for that reason, the long silence is broken. Granted, Randy Quaid turns in his first serious performance I have seen in a while, but it's nothing compared to the other actors. Anna Faris, Anne Hathaway and Linda Cardellini round out the rest of cast, and they don't disappoint.

Movie Grade: A

Brokeback Mountain could possibly be the first film that makes gay okay in the midwest. This story will break down boundaries and film barriers. It has only garnered the best Oscar buzz of the season since it hit the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals. It is one of those films that comes along every once in a while that will be looked at years to come as the movie that started a movement. That movement, my friends, is called making good movies that educate an audience rather than dumb down a genre. It's called the return of autuer filmmaking.

Synopsis:

Set against the sweeping landscapes of Wyoming and Texas, this epic love story tells of two young men -- a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy -- who meet in the summer of 1963 while driving cattle on a mountain range. They unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love.