Brokeback Mountain gallery
What parents need to know
Violence
Sex
Language
Consumerism
Drinking, drugs, & smoking
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this is a mature, emotionally complicated film that isn't appropriate for kids. The movie is focused on a lifelong relationship between two male cowboys. Their meeting and discovery of mutual desire at film's start is pictured in a rough-seeming sex scene (with fairly explicit activity); from then on, their physical relationship is less overt. They argue, wrestle, and occasionally come to sexual-tension-filled blows. Characters curse (including use of "f--k" and homophobic slang), smoke, and drink hard liquor in a "manly" manner. Married couples also argue, as wives come to resent their husbands' "other" interests.
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What's the story?
When cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet during a month of sheep ranching in Wyoming, they share lust, passion, and genuine affection -- though in 1963, they can't imagine their feelings defining themselves. Their silence lasts for years: Each goes home, Ennis marries his girlfriend Alma (Michelle Williams), Jack longs for Ennis. They agree to meet again and then feel unable to stop. They can't articulate their feelings, only marvel at their own passion and tell their families they have gone \"fishing.\" Alma discovers the truth (which she keeps to herself); horrified and angry, she silently watches him leave every few months and return with no fish. The men can't acknowledge their relationship as a choice and a commitment, only as a \"thing.\"
Is it any good?
QUALITY
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a thoughtful, lyrical, eventually frustrating examination of two men's romance over many years. Though Ennis and Jack never call themselves "gay" or "queer," they do love each other and share a sexual relationship. The film is as much about silence and repression as it is about passion. It's Alma's silence that makes the film feel so serious. Her pain is neither exquisite nor elegiac. It's only hard. As soon as she sees the men embrace, Alma becomes the tragic bearer of knowledge.
Ennis' lack of language, initially clench-jawed mumbling, is eventually subtler, especially in his relationship with his daughter, Alma Jr. (at 19, played by Kate Mara). She observes her father closely and does her best to keep him from taking up -- after his divorce from her mom -- with a perky barmaid. "You don't say much," notes the girlfriend as the two sit together at a table, watching Ennis lean over jukebox. "But you get your point across."Brokeback Mountain gets its point across, too: The men are anguished. They act on their pain in different ways, and the big wide Wyoming landscape -- so mighty, so simple, so overwhelming -- reflects their efforts to be together, to stay apart, to resist expectations and to succumb to them.
Families can talk about...
Families can talk about the film's treatment of Jack and Ennis' relationship. How do their lying and betrayal affect their wives and children? Also, families can talk about whether or not it was "brave" for Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger to take their roles.
Movie details
| Theatrical release date: | December 9, 2005 |
| DVD release date: | April 4, 2006 |
| Cast: | Anne Hathaway, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal |
| Director: | Ang Lee |
| Studio: | Focus Features |
| Genre: | Drama |
| Run time: | 134 minutes |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | sexuality, nudity, language and some violence. |
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Fine for Teenagers
If your child WANTS to see Brokeback Mountain, they are probably old enough to see it. It's not like some movies; they don't want to see it because of the hot chicks or the cool fight scenes or because everyone else is seeing it.
Sometimes, I find this site slightly offensive. Anything with even the slightest thing in it homosexual (the single kiss in the BULLY games) is immediately listed as something the parents should watch out for.
You don't want your kids to know gay people exist? You would a toddle see a man-woman kiss, what's the difference?
You can't shelter your kids from gay people. It's impossible, short of raising them in Amish Town.
What other families should know
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Kids who understand sex and homosexuality.
This movie isn't as vulgar as it is made out to be. It's not full of gay sex, not even conversations of gay sex. There is only one sex scene between the two men (there are actually two sex scenes involving a man and a women and another scene of foreplay between a man and a women, the women being topless), and it isn't even that explicit. You see no male nudity, only women's breasts. The two men only kiss three of four times. The movie is about the love these men share, and how it affects their lives. Don't think this is some soft core porno. It is a romantic drama. Nothing more, nothing less. It really shows how gays are discriminated against, and how it affects them.
What other families should know
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good for mature teens
i love this movie so much! i watched it when i was about 11 or 12 and i didn't fully understand it. i watched it just now at the age of 13 and i understood it and could really handle it. i am more mature than average kids my age, but i think that this movie is doable for a young teenage audience.
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