Review of Brokeback Mountain

Excellent acting, direction and cinematography is what elevated this movie despite the story line being stretched beyond all belief. The entire story had one goal....to show how society forces gay men to make unhappy choices that can end tragically. When the two love birds finally meet 4 years after their brief mountain top fling, they throw themselves madly at each other and kiss passionately as if they had been pining away for one another the whole time, in between getting married and starting families. Totally didn't buy it. And then for 20 years thereafter, they meet once a year to unleash a whole year's worth of carnal passion, all while smoking up a storm. Didn't buy it for one second as being plausible. Gay men generally have a lot of fleeting encounters. It's very very difficult for them to maintain a 20 year passionate romance under the circumstances portrayed in this movie. Hence, I took a star off this movie, which is otherwise well cast, directed and shot.