BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005). Ang Lee's "gay cowboy movie"actually has less sex than the average PG-13 film about heterosexual love, but a consummate performance by Heath Ledger and Lee's limpid, unmanipulative direction make it an affecting tearjerker. It opens with a wordless mating dance as cocky kid Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a worried-looking Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) wait to apply for a job herding sheep for the winter. It's 1964 and Wyoming, so Jack's attraction to Ennis is limited to sidelong glances in his pick-up's rear-view mirror, and Ennis's shrunken body language screams repression. Later, tending the flock on the title peak, the pair eat beans and swap bits of their lives. Once off the mountain they part: Ennis marries pretty Alma (Michelle Williams), who gives him daughters, bills, and non-comprehension; Jack hitches up with cowgirl Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and lands an emasculating sinecure in her father's company. They have their get-togethers over the years, "fishing trips" that remind them, and us, of the hopelessness of love and the inevitability of loss. Lee remains as laconic as his heroes, and the simple authenticity of his film's gestures almost compensates for the lack of anything to back them up. (134m)

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