Went to see this last night with a couple of guys from work. We were all agreed it was a pretty amazing film: we came out feeling a bit stunned, with lots to think about. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting from the write-ups; I was under the impression that the whole focus of the film was the  grand passion at the centre of the story. But, a bit like The English Patient, although the story revolved around two people who fell in love, the film was much much more complex than that, the most interesting threads being the contributing factors to their love, and the consequences of it to themselves and to other people. 

A few things stay with me 24 hours later. First, the film is absolutely beautifully shot. The very slow opening sequences with the sheep going up the mountain are absolutely fantastic – they look like a river flowing uphill. The fact that the first few months of the story occupy a disproportionately large amount of the film, and the gradual acceleration of time thereafter, cleverly places the life-changing significance of that summer for the two men.
One of the most poignant parts of the movie is the depiction of the rolling shockwaves that hit Alma  when she discovers Ennis in a clinch with Jack. The way those scenes were shot and cut together were brilliant – you could physically feel her sick, gut-wrenching realisation that her whole life as she knew it was sliding away from her. The hollow despair that followed was tangible and poignant; she played the part brilliantly.
There have been some reactions against the movie because of its focus on homosexual love. I found the horror of the homophobic violence depicted in two scenes in the movie much more affecting – one in Ennis’s 9-year-old memory, the other in his imagination as he hears a "version of events" over the phone.  Violence is always sickening.