There has been a lot of talk explaining how Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” isn’t really a ‘gay’ movie per se, how its two-decade love story between a pair of masculine cowboys goes beyond male or female to, like “Gone with the Wind” or “Titanic,” take on a timeless universality all its own. While I agree the story is both timeless and universal, a part of me can’t help but step back from this conversation and look at all with dumbfounded bewilderment.

The fact is, as hard as everyone is working to make the average moviegoer believe “Brokeback Mountain” is more than just the tale of two men tragically in love, no matter how many different ways you look at it this is still the story of two men tragically in love. Personally, I’m just fine with that. Really, I’m more concerned with whether or not the charters and their plight are rich, poignant and believable, not with what their sexuality is. But while I understand a great cross-section of America doesn’t share my open-minded opinions, I still can’t say I agree with not calling a film exactly what it is just for the sake of tricking a few more viewers into seeing it.

Don’t kid yourself; this is a movie about two gay cowboys, and if you are the type of person who feels you can’t handle a subject like this without snickering then you’re missing out on one of the best films of 2005.

It is 1963. Two men go up into the Wyoming mountains to herd sheep for the summer. One is soft-spoken loner Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), the other the gregarious and friendly failed rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). These two young frontiersmen have taken wildly divergent paths to get to this place in their lives, neither expecting to make the acquaintance of the other. And yet, here they are, sitting atop Brokeback Mountain, learning to be friends, protecting a flock of animals they could care less about, all to attain a paycheck in hopes of paying for dreams both know deep down they’ll never be able to afford.

Being at the top of a mountain is lonely, the extreme isolation enough to drive any man insane. But if it doesn’t do that, there is always the possibility it could instead bring out feelings that are already there, exacerbate longings either unnoticed or held deeply repressed. Whatever the truth is, sitting on Brokeback Ennis and Jack start out as strangers, slowly evolve into compatriots and finally come down as something else entirely, a something else neither man can ever admit to being and hope to stay a cowboy. Worse, to stay alive, the truth of what they are feeling enough to drive a rigid society to hatred, bigotry and, ultimately, murder.

In one of the most beautifully realized scripts of the year, writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana have taken Annie Proulx’s acclaimed short story and turned it into something perfect. Under Lee’s precise direction, the filmmakers have crafted a story of love, loss and regret that digs deeper and probes harder into the recesses of the human soul than just about anything else I’ve had the pleasure to see. Most of all, it is the story of two men in love, two quintessential icons of the American West unable to admit to anyone, let alone themselves, the secret longing that lives within their hearts.

Let’s be clear, I’m not a critic falling all over herself to praise this film just because of its subject matter. As good as “Brokeback Mountain” is, it is still a good twenty minutes too long and some of its multiple vignettes feel more than a little unnecessary. The final is obsessively drawn out, seconds going by like minutes as Lee and company reach the only conclusion available to their teary-eyed protagonists. Also, unless it is focusing upon the two cowboys, the movie tends to forget about its female characters entirely, too many scenes of women sitting at home distraught and alone for my satisfaction.

But none of this matters near as much as it probably should. For one thing, McMurtry understands the Western and the life of a cowboy better than just about any other writer, a talent that should come as no surprise to fans of “Lonesome Dove” or “The Last Picture Show.” For another, Lee handles actors and emotions better than almost any other director working today. His touch is both firm and subtle, deftly shifting pieces from here to there like Bobby Fisher playing championship chess.

It is the performances, though, that makes “Brokeback Mountain” truly special. Gyllenhaal, so good in indies like “The Good Girl” and “Donnie Darko,” outdoes himself, crafting a portrait of conflicted loving obsession that’s right up there with the best supporting performances in this or any other year. Of the women, Michelle Williams cries beautifully as Ennis’ long-suffering wife, while Anna Faris explodes the silence as a bubbly chatterbox stuck in a loveless marriage looking to Jack to help shake up the monotony. Best of all is young Disney darling (whom, after this, will never be a princess for the studio again) Anne Hathaway, chain-smoking her repressed emotions away underneath the façade of a perfect life and marriage made with a man she knows doesn’t even remotely find her attractive.

Beginning to end, “Brokeback Mountain” is Ledger’s show, however, and nobody else in the feature can touch him. The reality here is that if you don’t feel for the characters than you don’t feel anything about the movie. Almost single-handedly Ledger makes you care; taking both his character and the film to a plain it simply would not reach without him. He makes Ennis a stoically tragic figure of repression and want, a caring, humane man stranded in a world of despair he feels unable to do anything about. It’s ripping him apart, turning him violent and insolent when such emotions have always been strangers.

Worse, all of this is of his own making, each bar of his cell fastened in place by an intolerant society he refuses to challenge. Ledger makes all this chaotic confusion immediate and palpable, peeling back each and every one of Ennis’ layers to reveal the wretchedly trembling man within. Along with Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Capote,” Terrence Howard in “Hustle & Flow” and Ralph Fiennes in “The Constant Gardener,” this is a performance transcending genre altogether, becoming some so much more I’m not even sure there are words to describe what it is exactly the actor does with the piece.

While the film’s reach is beyond the homophobic world of gay or straight, Proulx’s story is still about two cowboys stuck in loveless marriages because their hearts refuse to open up to anyone else but each other. If anything, the fact that this is exactly what the movie is about is a thing that should be celebrated, not hidden. Hopefully it will open eyes and change opinions, get people to realize love crosses all races, all ethnicity and, yes, all genders. In the end, the only thing that truly matters is if it is any good as entertainment, making people think and changing opinions a fantastically heartfelt bonus.

“Brokeback Mountain” is all of this and more, and while I don’t think it is quite the classic as Lee’s own works “The Wedding Banquet,” “The Ice Storm” or “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” it’s pretty darn close. Heck, Ledger is worth the price of admission by himself, breaking my heart so clean it may never come together again. Gay or straight, right or left, Democrat or Republican, Christian or atheist, love is love no matter what your stripe. Lee knows this, feels it deep down in the very fiber of his soul, and his films reflect that in every frame, this one maybe more so than any of his others.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)