I have enjoyed watching Heath Ledger ever since that funky little Arthurian movie he made when he was about twelve (or eighteen, or something). He just looked so.. earnest. And nice. He was handsome, certainly, but mostly I was drawn to his openness and clear spirit.

I trotted along, merrily knowing that Heath was out there doing his moviemaking thing, right up until Brokeback Mountain came along. Now, I am fine with Brokeback, and I think both he and Jake Gyllenhaal did a great job. But frankly, it wasn't the plot I was viciously following when I watched it. No, it was the character development, and of course, the crazy choices.

I grant you, Heath has such a handsome, angular face -- more angles in his face than most geometry textbooks, thank you -- and such a wide-open look about him that I had a hard time buying into him as a secret homosexual. He is a very good actor, so I did buy into the troubled layer of Tough Guy over top of his secret emotional space. Jake was even easier, except that his Stoic Man seemed more careless than stilted. And what else is stoicism besides emotion with a hard set to it?

In any case, I just wanted them to come out, admit their affair, and then buy a cute little place in Wyoming they could do up nicely. There are plenty of men in the Bay Area who could have shown them how it's done: shabby chic windows, fabulous paint, and some very cool lighting and accessories... sigh.

But, obviously, this movie wasn't really about them. No, really, it wasn't. It was about the cultural norms that drove their natural tendencies into a sharp, ninety-degree problem. Really, now, in San Francisco this would all have worked itself out so neatly. (Can you say "Leather Bar"? I knew you could.) Now, I admit that I find absolutely nothing wrong with the human desire to love and be loved, whether that takes the shape of homosexuality or not. I do have trouble with people lying to themselves and others, however, and this is what made the movie so captivating: had these men lived somewhere other than Wyoming, the emergence of their feelings for one another could have taken shape as an interesting dimension of their personal lives, adding depth and human interest. The love affair could have permeated the atmosphere like so much food for gossip, swilled over coffee or cocktails while Heath, in a fetching black sweater, earnestly leans over a spot-lit marble table and asks a girlfriend, "Do you really think he could be The One?"

The depth you can get out of analyzing what person is Really Right for You is amazing. Unfortunately, we didn't even get that far.

I don't know if it's just me, but there was almost a forced shallowness about their relationship. Not that it was shallow, but it was somehow robbed, not allowed to breathe. Like a red wine guiltily broken open and consumed when a little too cold, with no time to breathe, that's how they loved. I suppose what makes me sad is that, like wine, love should be uncorked, given time to breathe, carefully poured into beautiful glasses at a well-lit table, and then savored with delightful food. It shouldn't be crammed into a stolen moments of freedom.

I grew up in Montana, where it seemed that many real moments were quickly reshaped into something Socially Acceptable, so perhaps this truncation is particularly saddening to me. After all, Montana and Wyoming are just a hop, skip, and jump away. Though Wyo's red deserts are more captivating to me than Montana's endlessness.

That's it, I think. There is opportunity, almost, to dive in, head first, to a deep and clear lake, beautiful, dangerous, and wet. And somehow you end up splashing around in the shallow end of a small swimming pool. So much promised depth, so much time wasted on the top three inches of water. It reminds me of walking out at the beach, where pools of shallow water soon get filled with dead seaweed, algae, and the like. Those pools aren't cleaned by tides and waves; that shallow water starts to stink very quickly.

Somehow, these emotional truncations remind me of trotting all your stuff out to the beach, setting up a lovely table with dinner, and sipping a glass of wine while watching the tide pool. For about an hour, a tide pool is interesting to watch. After that, though, it just starts to stink. And you find yourself watching the ocean, where the waves take down everything in their path, instead of being trapped by old curmudgeons of sand. Who doesn't find the ocean so much more relaxing?

I don't live in Montana anymore; that pool, for me, began to stink. Perhaps in general, I find that watching people trapped in lives too small for them is awkward at best. Even in the movies.