Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ennis and Jack, 1960s Wyoming ranch hands tending sheep on a desolate stretch of back country. They aren't much given to expressing themselves verbally, but doing the same job makes them fast friends... and then something considerably more than that. What at first looks like an inebriated evening of passion becomes the beginning of a forbidden affair spanning the next two decades.

The time, the place and the culture conspire to keep their same-sex love a secret. They take wives (Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, both excellent) and raise families, but they never stop thinking of each other and arranging opportunities to meet a few times each year.

Lee ( Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ; The Ice Storm ; The Hulk ), perhaps the best (and certainly the most wide-reaching) director in the business, explores the constraints that keep these lovers apart and the inarticulate speech of the heart that binds them together. The two stars are magnificent, and the film's deliberate pace perfectly suits its unraveling revelations. It's a mystery why all the awards attention is focused so exclusively on Ledger. Yes, he's deeply moving, and deserves the acclaim after too many years of being anointed, and then not quite becoming, the Next Big Thing. But Gyllenhaal matches him point for point, with a characterization that is both distinctly different yet equally complicated. Add this to his yeoman work in the recent Jarhead , and place in the context of fine performances reaching back to October Sky , and you've got to wonder: Can we not notice two splendid portrayals simultaneously?

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