I finally got around to seeing this movie. Gay romance doesn't necessarily turn me off...romance movies turn me off. But it was supposed to be well made...yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, it wasn't well made. The worst part was the dialog. Not necessarily the content of what they said, although that wasn't so hot, either. I'm talking about understandability. Heath Ledger must have packed a whole can of Play-Doh in his jowls for each shoot, because he sounds like he just got his wisdom teeth out. And he's trying to do a Southern accent. It's like a bad mix between Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts.

But even if I couldn't understand the dialog, could I still grasp the basics of the story? Yeah, it wasn't that complicated, and it could have been done in a lot less time. Two young ranchers spend a summer herding sheep in Wyoming and fall in love. Then they go their separate ways, get married, have kids, but keep meeting over the years to carry on their affair.

The ending didn't feel poignant, just tacked on. There was little context for it. And while I had some sympathy for the two characters, since they were living in a place and time with zero tolerance for homosexuality, that sympathy was kept somewhat in check by their deception of their wives.

I did wonder, since neither one apparently had any problems getting turned on by women, or fathering children...were they both evenly bisexual? Or were they overwhelmingly homosexual, and their marriages were shams? If that's the case, then I have even less sympathy for them entering into a relationship and fathering children most as some sort of cover.

I guess it won Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay mostly on its subject matter, because it just wasn't that great a movie.