Here's a film starring two mainstream actors, both straight sex symbols, directed by a major filmmaker, that treats two men in a gay relationship without a whiff of condescension or giggly levity. "Brokeback" is about two people whose passion for each other is so all-consuming that their inability to be together leads to lives of desperate regret. The fact that the two men in question are cowboys -- the ultimate icon of American machismo -- makes the transcendence of this love story all the more daring.It would be so easy to dismiss "Brokeback Mountain" as "the gay cowboy movie." Some people will, and will stay away. Pity, but it's their loss.Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal invest their characters with such unstudied confidence, it's impossible not to accept them at face value. They're not stereotypical "gay" men, but rugged outdoorsmen and individualists who'd be at home in any John Wayne movie. The ferocity of their love comes as a head-jerking wallop to them.Equally stunning is that this rich story, which covers two decades, was adapted from a 30-page short story by Annie Proulx (whose other film adaptation, "The Shipping News," was beloved by me but not many others). Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove") and Diana Ossana crafted a spare, elegant script, which director Ang Lee executed with equal parts sensitivity and directness. They set out to make a haunting love story and succeeded; the fact that it involves two men describes, rather than defines, the coupling.In 1963, two young cowpokes are hired to tend a herd of sheep during summer grazing on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) is an orphaned recluse who's withdrawn and shy, while Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) is an outgoing ranch hand and sometime rodeo bull rider. They spend their first few weeks alone together on the mountain mired in routine -- complaining about eating beans all the time, taking shots at wolves stalking the herd (and, when their aim is true, stringing up the pelts as a warning) and trying to stay warm.It's on one of those cold, whiskey-soaked nights that things take an unexpected turn. As they share a tent for warmth, their desire awakens with such fury, their first sexual encounter resembles a bare-knuckled melee. The next morning, sobered up and regretful, they're compelled to defend their surly manhood to each other: "You know I ain't queer." "Me neither."But the relationship continues and deepens, and when the summer ends abruptly, both men go to great pains not to show how deep the parting cuts them.Several years pass. Ennis has married a meek girl, Alma (Michelle Williams), and had two daughters, while Jack has hitched up with rich cowgirl Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and had a son. When they reunite for a fishing trip, their romance rekindles almost as unexpectedly as it started. "Swear I didn't know we'd get into all this again," Jack insists.He wants them to abandon their families so they can be together. But Ennis is justifiably more fearful, having witnessed the toll that border-town intolerance can have on gays.More years fly by, with the pair keeping their sporadic affair a secret -- although both wives suspect their husbands' relationship is more than just friendship. One of the film's strengths is that it doesn't ignore the terrible burden the forbidden love places on those on the sidelines.Both Gyllenhaal and Ledger give mature, breathtakingly nuanced performances, but ultimately it's Ledger who leaves a deeper impression. Ennis is so taciturn and ruled by fear, he's incapable of reaching out from the cage society has locked him in. Ultimately, that dooms all chances for happiness and invites tragedy.With its straight-faced, unabashed story of the passion between two men, and how they are both fulfilled and destroyed by that love, "Brokeback Mountain" is the most revelatory film experience of 2005.

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