"Brokeback" leaves me shaken, not broken

Saw the trendy cowboy/rancher/poor midwestern slobs movie, Brokeback Mountain tonight.

I tried earlier today to see it, only to find that every showing except 10 p.m. was sold out in advance. (But this ain't gonna be a box-office king; if it's limited to similar venues as it's screening here in DC (a single theatre, on a few screens), opening-weekend sellouts in tiny theatres in the heart of urban gay neighborhoods won't crack any long-term records.) I had to buy my ticket online... Eventually the 10:00 show was also sold out. I got a decent seat but a bit too far back. Anyway...
I'm not sure I get what the hype/buzz is all about.

Sure, it's a "mainstream" film with known actors, depicting romantic gay love without the (West) Hollywood stereotypes. But... it was all very subtle, too much so, in my opinion.

It's beautifully shot (especially the 1st third, up on the mountain), and the story is compelling, to some extent. Unfortunately, at least one, if not both, the main characters are somewhat less than sympathetic (except maybe we pity them). The Heath Ledger character especially is hard to like: on the rare occasion he says anything, he mumbles and grunts. With the exception of maybe two scenes, he doesn't express any emotion except torture. But this is the character that bears the emotional weight of the whole story. Subtle, but not enough. People that keep such stuff bottled up usually die before they're 50. So don't expect "Brokeback 2"; the character surely won't be around long after this movie ends.

The scenes move very slowly, yet the film abruptly leaps years ahead in a single cut, with only a few clues that a lot of time has passed.

I also don't get what the moral outrage is about (well, we know what it's about! jealousy!!!); there's very little here that the typical PG-13 or R film doesn't have, and the actual physical sexual stuff between the characters shown on-screen is very limited and overall quite tame. I kind of had to wonder what happened with the advance reports on this film. The protagonists only have two kissing scenes (maybe not really even two). Actually I was rather disappointed that the physical affection between them wasn't shown much, either. It was mostly "emoted", I guess.

Without giving away too much, it did seem that despite his initial protests to the contrary, one of the principals *would* have identified as gay in the modern sense (had he not been living in the mid/west US), while the other would/could not -- which is the root of their conflict.

The acting was fine; I didn't have trouble believing any of the actors, even though a few minor characters were rather thin and played for laughs. All in all, it was worth seeing, and while it was a quality production, my lingering reaction is, "that's it?"

(And while I thought it would leave me a blubbering mess, I got teary only once and it was only slightly. OK, maybe twice, but that's it. I guess I just didn't feel enough for the characters.) But upon repeated reflection, as I watched it I did get the theme of having to repress a very powerful love. That's something I know a little bit about. Which should have left me in a teary shambles, but it didn't.