Nuphy was telling me that there's a piece in the New York Review of Books that addresses just these complaints. Apparently the viewpoint of the author--with which Nuphy concurs--is that they stem from the fundamental misapprehension that the movie is about a love story. It isn't; it's fundamentally about the closet, and how it destroys love and happiness.
Nuphy can speak from experience: He was in the closet for over fifty years until he met me. (He's exactly the same age as Jake Gyllenhall's character would be if he'd survived.) monshu, who's just a few years younger, tells me he's seeing a definitely split in reactions among viewers based on whether they belong to the pre- or post-Stonewall generations. The older gays recognise something from their own experience whereas the younger gays just don't seem to get it.
I think the only reason why I do is that I've spent so much time with older gay men, many of whom only came out in middle age. So although I don't have the direct experience, I've benefitted from theirs, albeit at a bit of remove. Still, I've spent a fair amount of time in my life pondering how it might've turned out had been born earlier or in a different part of the world. One of the questions the movie makes me ask is, Would I have been more like Jack or Ennis?
Also, I disagree that they don't share any tenderness that isn't a fist-fight or wrestling match; I can think of at least two cuddling scenes where this is the case. It's another mistake to expect that two men raised with a very different set of mores than you or I will express affection in exactly the same way as we would. The older men I've dated have never been as comfortable with PDAs as you or I would be--and these are otherwise touchy-feely urbanites, not macho farmers from austere Christian backgrounds. You take one look at Jack's father in the film and you realise he never experienced a single moment of male affection in that household.
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Nuphy can speak from experience: He was in the closet for over fifty years until he met me. (He's exactly the same age as Jake Gyllenhall's character would be if he'd survived.)
I think the only reason why I do is that I've spent so much time with older gay men, many of whom only came out in middle age. So although I don't have the direct experience, I've benefitted from theirs, albeit at a bit of remove. Still, I've spent a fair amount of time in my life pondering how it might've turned out had been born earlier or in a different part of the world. One of the questions the movie makes me ask is, Would I have been more like Jack or Ennis?
Also, I disagree that they don't share any tenderness that isn't a fist-fight or wrestling match; I can think of at least two cuddling scenes where this is the case. It's another mistake to expect that two men raised with a very different set of mores than you or I will express affection in exactly the same way as we would. The older men I've dated have never been as comfortable with PDAs as you or I would be--and these are otherwise touchy-feely urbanites, not macho farmers from austere Christian backgrounds. You take one look at Jack's father in the film and you realise he never experienced a single moment of male affection in that household.