After re-watching what is perhaps the most widely known gay story on screen, I decided it was time to write about it on here.

Time is certainly a key construct in the film. Without it, the intervals between the two men’s encounters with each other would seem trivial. But when exacerbated to time periods of up to four years, they take on a new notion of perceivable gravity.

Any reflection on any life instills the knowledge that in taking out all distractions around us, the clock seems to tick a little (or a lot) slower. This film places us against the backdrop of Wyoming in the early 1960’s. And the two men’s paths cross when they both take a job working on the land – far removed from the high pace city life filled to the brink with technology designed to, among other purposes, help make time speed away quicker.

Throughout this film, we see the characters develop from a tender youthful age, to middle-aged men, fathers to adolescent children raised with their respective wives. This element of time has a crushing nature upon Jack, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s not that Heath Ledger’s character, Ennis, falls short of reciprocating the affection shown to him, it’s just that his expectations are more solidified within his reality. Whereas Jack dares to dream, with the possibility for dire consequences to arise, but also the possibility for a better life.

Nature, and man’s role within it, comprises another key theme. For, if you find any scenes without natural elements within them, they will be few and far between, and brief, in this film. And the director, who won the Oscar for this feature, doesn’t shove this element in the viewer’s face, but rather subtly places it in the background, just enough for it to play its role of adding to the ambience, the characters, and the potential for evoking thought on this theme, in the telling of this story.

Take, for example, the fact that the men’s refuge away together is often masked with fishing trips. Or the flowing rivers and sweeping landscapes of that breathtakingly beautiful Wyoming landscape. Or the animals: the sheep they are in charge of caring for; the horses they ride; the bear that Ennis encounters: an unforeseen event that leads to the first major plot point in this film. Given the divergent attitudes as to whether a man has a say in how he interacts and creates a life for himself within the constraints of the nature and society around him, this natural element of the film appears most definitely to be a key theme.

This story really represents the hardships with which so many men from this era and in this type of geography have been burdened and/or burdened themselves. I naturally therefore think it is absolutely worth your while watching.

If you’ve seen this film and wish to share how you related to it, please do write about that in the comments below.

All the best and best regards.