.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

This years best and most beautifully photographed film is probably going to be the hardest film to find someone accompany you to the theatre with the new cowboy/love story, Brokeback Mountain.

Not that love stories are not a draw, but anyone who doesn't go to a film without knowing a little bit about the story, would be aware that Brokeback Mountain tells the story of two young, lonely cowboys that find comfort in each others arms and lead a romance that would continue into their adult lives.

The story comes to us from writer Annie Proulx (The Shipping News) who wrote Brokeback Mountain as a short story for the New Yorker in 1997. It was then Larry McMurtry and Diana Odessa who wrote a screenplay that had big names such as Joel Schumacher and Gus Van Sant interested in bringing the story to the big screen.

But it was Ang Lee who won the sweepstakes and got to helm what was a controversial subject right from the get go. Now for most, Lee must have seemed like an odd choice. After all, without offending anyone, he was a foreigner who was being entrusted in bringing the last of the American He-Men professions to the big screen. Couple that with the failure (if $200 million worldwide can be considered a failure) of his last directing gig, The Hulk, and I am sure more than one eyebrow was raised when his name appeared attached to the project.

Luckily, the studio stuck by their man and with Lee aboard, actors Jake Gyllenhaal (The Day After Tomorrow) and Heath Ledger (The Brothers Grimm) signed on the not-so-dotted line to star as the two cowboys, Jack and Ennis who while working in the mountains herding sheep for the season, fall in love with each others and begin a sexual encounter that would drive the film through its two hour running time.

Now for those of you who feel uncomfortable when two male characters lock lips for two seconds on sponsor pulled television programs looking to 'push an envelope', then I suggest that you take a pass on Brokeback Mountain. But for those of you mature enough to just sit back and enjoy a good love story no matter the sexual orientation of the two leads, then you are in for a real treat.

Brokeback Mountain takes its time in the telling of its story. The men fall in love after establishing a friendship and Lee makes sure that nothing seems forced leading up to their first kiss. Keeping with a pace that's as elegant as the musical score driving it, the two cowboys are forced apart at the end of their first season in the mountains together and both go on to other lives that includes wives and children. But their love for each other endures, and when Jake comes a-callin' years later, Ennis is all to happy to leave his wife and children for a few days to recapture the love and connection he had with Jake years earlier.

This connection and the days-on-end trips that result in each encounter goes on for a lifetime as the two continue to live lives unbeknownst to their spouses and loved ones. The result of this love for each other would drive the two men as far apart as it would together. Jake wants Ennis to leave his wife and kids and move to Texas to live with him on his family's farm. Ennis has no aspirations of revealing his intimate feelings for another man to the public and continues to shy from Jakes aggressive behavior.

With the two at opposite ends of acceptance, I won't reveal what becomes of both Jake and Ennis. As most love stories go, the ending will either be unpredictable or John Hughes, and I will leave it up to you brave and mature enough to enjoy the film to relish in what is now an Oscar front runner for more awards than I have fingers.