Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), two young men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. The film documents their complex relationship over the next eighteen years.
Ennis and Jack first meet when they are hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd his sheep through the summer. During the long months of isolation, a bond begins to develop between the two. One night, after heavy drinking, Jack makes a sexual pass at Ennis, who initially is apprehensive, but then succumbs to Jack's advances. Although he warns Jack it was only a one-time incident, Ennis finds himself becoming involved in both a physical and a powerful emotional relationship with his partner through the rest of their tenure. Shortly after learning their summer together is being cut short unexpectedly, they briefly fight, during which each is bloodied.
After the two part ways, Ennis marries his long-time fiancée Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and fathers two children. Jack goes to Aguirre for a job, hoping to find Ennis, but Aguirre, who is homophobic and witnessed them playing on the mountain, refuses him work. Jack eventually meets, marries and starts a family with rodeo princess Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway), but still misses Ennis, and decides to pay him a visit four years later. Ennis and Jack subsequently meet again, and Alma accidentally witnesses them passionately kissing. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life together on a small ranch, but Ennis, haunted by a painful childhood memory of the torture and murder of a suspected homosexual in his hometown, fears such an arrangement could only end in tragedy. He also is unwilling to abandon his family. Unable to be open about their relationship, Ennis and Jack end up meeting only for infrequent fishing trips.
As the years pass, the marriages of both men deteriorate. Alma's awareness of her husband's relationship with Jack have created a strain on the couple's relationship. They eventually divorce, with Alma getting custody of the children. Ennis continues to see his family regularly until Alma, finally revealing her knowledge of Ennis' affair with Jack, makes homophobic remarks about Jack during an argument, causing Ennis to sever his ties with Alma. Meanwhile, Lureen has abandoned her fun-loving ways and become a strait-laced businesswoman who expects Jack to settle down and work in sales, a career for which he has talent but no drive. Hearing about Ennis's divorce, Jack drives to Wyoming in hopes they can live together at last, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children and is still fearful of possible repercussions if their relationship becomes public. Meanwhile, Ennis meets and later has a brief romantic relationship with a waitress, Cassie Cartwright (Linda Cardellini). While it is obvious that Cassie harbours deep feelings for Ennis, their relationship is short-lived due to Ennis' quiet and bitter manner, and Cassie finds another man. Jack and Lureen meet and befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn Malone, and it is hinted that Jack and Randall begin a secret affair behind their wives' backs.
At the end of a camping trip, Ennis tells Jack he has to cancel their next outing because of his job, and an argument erupts. Ennis blames Jack for "making me the way I am" and for being the cause of his conflicted emotions, feeling they have trapped him and ruined his life. Jack attempts to hold him and there is a brief struggle, but they end up locked in an embrace. Despite the quarrel, they still part as friends.
An unspecified amount of time later, a postcard Ennis sent to Jack is returned stamped "Deceased." In a telephone conversation, Lureen tells Ennis that Jack died while changing a tire that exploded, although her explanation of the incident is overlaid with images of Jack being murdered by three men. Lureen tells Ennis that Jack wished to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but she didn't know where it was. Ennis travels to see Jack's mother and father (Roberta Maxwell and Peter McRobbie), where he offers to take Jack's ashes, but the father flatly refuses the request. Jack's mother asks Ennis if he would like to see Jack's childhood bedroom before he leaves. There he discovers on a hanger in the closet the old blood-stained shirt he thought he had lost on Brokeback Mountain, learning instead that Jack had stolen it. Here it waits on a hanger, tucked inside the also blood-stained shirt Jack himself had worn in that fight long ago. Ennis holds them up to his face, breathes in their scent, and silently weeps. He carries the shirts downstairs with him, and Jack's mother allows him to keep them, and gives him a bag to carry them in.
In the final scene, 19-year-old Alma Jr. (Kate Mara) arrives at her father's trailer with the news she's engaged. She asks Ennis for his blessings and invites him to the wedding. Ennis, finally aware of the importance of love in a relationship and marriage, asks her if her fiancé really loves her. After Alma's departure, Ennis notices she has forgotten her sweater, which he folds and puts in the closet. Inside, hanging on a nail pounded into the door, are the two shirts with a postcard of Brokeback Mountain tacked alongside. Now, Jack's shirt is tucked inside of Ennis's. Ennis carefully fastens the top button of Jack's shirt, and with tears in his eyes mutters, "Jack, I swear..." while slowly straightening the postcard.
