Ok, I’ll take a deep breath and dive in here with my spin on why Jack didn’t leave Lureen and move closer to Ennis (and even try to get back on topic before I‘m done
).
First, I’m not at all sure that Ennis would have responded well to such a move. He had a very low startle point, as evidenced by his reaction when Jack showed up after the divorce from Alma. He had a certain amount of paranoia about what people in town might be thinking of him (the “Do you ever get the feeling?” speech). And he had a firmly ingrained belief about what would happen to them if “this thing” came over them in the wrong place or time.
The reunion scene is the only time he lets those guards down, and then only for a moment. My guess is that this is because it’s been four years and he wasn’t sure he’d ever see Jack again. According to the SS, he’d realized some time since that he never should’ve let Jack out of his sight, so he’d been brewing for it for a long time. Ironically, that impulsive moment probably solidified his fears about not being able to control “this thing” they had and his belief that they couldn’t live together or even be seen together.
Some people think that if Jack had just pushed Ennis a little more, the love would win out over the fear. But I think Jack learned early on what the balance of push and give needed to be with Ennis:
FNIT allowed him to take a chance and be bold for a moment, which paid off. The next day needed to be about give. “I ain’t queer.” “Me neither. It’s nobody’s business but ours.” That night he waited for Ennis to come to him.
At the end of the summer, Jack left the door open to the possibility of seeing each other again, even saying he might be back after Ennis essentially shut down the possibility when he said he most likely wouldn’t be back. And Jack did come back, just in case Ennis had been able to take that step.
After four years, Jack tentatively sent the first postcard. Ennis initiated the reunion kiss, showing Jack that he was indeed missed, that they had felt, and still felt, the same things.
Following this, Jack told Ennis he wanted a life together. Ennis said once in a while in the middle of nowhere. Jack complied, knowing that pushing Ennis would only push him away. This pattern continued throughout their relationship.
So why would Jack leave Lureen and move closer to Ennis? The idea behind having him do so is that they could spend more time together and Ennis might eventually soften to the idea of making a life with Jack. It’s possible such a move would actually accomplish just the opposite.
So Jack leaves Lureen, which means leaving his son. Which he was more than willing to do if Ennis agreed to live with him, but would just a vague possibility that Ennis might come around some day be enough to make him do so?
Also, the reason that they are able to meet up as often as they do is that Ennis quits his jobs when necessary and Jack is able to come and go from his job with a certain amount of freedom because he works for family, which allows him to work around Ennis’s schedule when necessary. Who knows what kind of job Jack would get if he moved back to Wyoming (or even how it would be if he worked for his father)? Would they be able to maintain even the meager trip schedule they already had? After the divorce, Ennis was less willing to quit jobs because of his child support obligations. Flexibility for Jack might be key then.
And again, knowing how Ennis feels about the way people might be looking at him (when Jack is hundreds of miles away so those people would have to be seeing something inside of him and not just an overt behavior between the two), how likely is it that he would respond well to having Jack live nearby? As long as he’s an old ‘fishing buddy’ who lives far away, it makes sense for Ennis to go off to ‘the middle of nowhere’ in order to see him. If he lived closer, Ennis might actually have to be seen with him in public somewhere. Not his favorite idea.
So we’ve now had Jack leave his wife and child, his job security, his built-in excuse to meet up with Ennis on a semi-regular basis and the flexibility to be able to do so, and all on the remote chance that, contrary to everything Ennis has been telling him all these years, he might get lucky and find that Ennis is suddenly receptive to the idea of building a life together. I just don’t see any good angle to his doing so.
Jack took a chance with FNIT and it paid off. Then he backed off and let Ennis set the pace.
He took a chance again with the postcard and again let Ennis set the rules.
He took another chance after Ennis got divorced and it seems to me he got the message Ennis sent him loud and clear. This relationship was never going to be about Jack pushing Ennis to do anything. It just wasn’t the way that either one of them was programmed.
Ok, having said all that, here’s where I bring us back on topic. Throughout the film, and in many of these scenes that I’ve referenced, you can see the surreptitious glance each directs toward the other:
Ennis looking up at Jack, gauging his reaction when he asks about people looking at him and knowing.
The look he gives him as he squirms around trying to figure out how to say no to August.
Every sideways glance when one thinks the other isn’t looking, just to get one more clue about how the other one is feeling or to give us one more clue about what he is feeling.
Ang Lee is brilliant to elicit these expressions from Jake and Heath, and they are brilliant for being able to convey so much of each man’s inner struggle through nothing more than the looks on their faces and the feelings conveyed in their eyes. Almost three years later and I am still in awe.
