Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Kate Mara and Valerie Planch

MPAA rating: R (for sexuality, slight nudity, adult language and brief violence)

Running time: 89 minutes

Least suited for: the Pat Robertson crowd

Most suited for: the tolerant, the curious, love story fanatic

You’re either going to love “Brokeback Mountain” or utterly dislike it, and there’s not a critic in the world who’ll change your mind.

However, the reasons for liking or disliking “Brokeback” have nothing to do, in my opinion, with gay love or straight love or cowboy love or just friendly horseplay that runs amok. The reason lies dangerously close to the fine line that separates infatuation and obsession.

If you choose to view “Brokeback Mountain” as a tale of forbidden love, I suspect you’ll accept the tale that unfolds as true. If you view the relationship as a runaway obsession that teeters on ruining too many lives, then I suspect the film will fail. With the latter view, both Heath Ledger’s character and Jake Gyllenhaal’s will come across as manipulative and selfish—even unlikable. Both men live the pretense of normality with wives and families, although neither is satisfied. Driven only by fleeting encounters with each other over a 20-year period, neither finds happiness being apart.

“God, I wish I knew how to quit you!” Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) says at one point.

But neither man knows how.

Taken as a love story, you’ll find “Brokeback” a haunting and remarkably well-told tale. The fact that it’s a love shared between two men is, in many ways, irrelevant. Society has a tendency to look down on differences and, set in 1963, the film could just as easily have depicted such dangerous love between a black woman and a white man, or a Jew and an Arab. For those among us who may be slightly homophobic in nature, take heart. There’s very little man-flesh traipsing across the screen. The love between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is largely implied—a hug here, a caress there.

There’s an old Celtic expression that reads: Harm none, then do what you will. Perhaps society should take note. Intolerance is the antagonist, the enemy of free choice in “Brokeback Mountain.” Funny how our freedom-loving society only seems to truly embrace those freedoms favored by the majority. We deem alternative choices as aberrant, unacceptable and even punishable. Ever wonder if we’re only really free if we go with the flow?

But social intolerance does make for powerful films.

“Brokeback Mountain” is, first and foremost, a beautifully scripted and filmed movie. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show”—a guy who obviously knows his cowpokes) and based on an E. Annie Proulx (also a Pulitzer Prize winner, for “The Shipping News”) short story, its lineage is as purebred as they come. Director Ang Lee uses the majestic backdrop of Wyoming with skill and dexterity and incorporates a simple, delicate soundtrack that works as well as any I’ve ever heard.

There’s an honesty at play here, a rare poignancy that dares to portray two guys—men who represent the quintessential American hero—who are actually allowed to emote. In the past, cowboy feelings, except about one’s horse, were taboo. In “Brokeback” the hurt of separation drives each to the edge of reason.

Is “Brokeback” a seminal film, one that aptly depicts tolerance and diversity? I suspect it may become such a film—in a way what “The Boys in the Band,” however campy by today’s standards, became for mainstream cinema in 1970. “Brokeback” dares to stretch society’s ethical envelope, and does so with a powerful dignity. I remember the minor stir caused by “The Summer of ’42.” The film contained a love scene between a grieving war widow and a high school boy. A stirring, less-offensive scene is hard to imagine, yet sensibilities were offended. One viewer called it repugnant. There are those who are spewing similar words about “Brokeback.” But if anything can gently bend moral standards, it’s Hollywood. In a nutshell: The American cowboy is an icon. Peeling away the layers of rugged loner and misunderstood warrior is perhaps long overdue. Contemporary cowboy flicks have been rare—“The Horse Whisperer” and the underrated “The Hi-Lo Country” off the top of my head—and now “Brokeback Mountain.” Because, in the end, “Brokeback” is a cowboy movie . . . a cowboy love story—with a twist. It’s only how we’re able to view that twist that depends on our acceptance of this film as impressive, or even important. Personally, I think it’s worth seeing. For those who can see the love, not the obsession, it’s a beautiful film.