Brokeback Mountain - Ending Explained

The film concludes with the heartbreaking revelation that Jack is dead. Ennis learns this via a returned postcard stamped 'DECEASED' and a tense phone call with Jack's widow, Lureen. The 'twist' regarding the shirts in the closet reveals that Jack had secretly loved Ennis far more than Ennis ever realized, keeping the blood-stained shirts from their first fight as a memento. The ending leaves Ennis in a lonely trailer, finally accepting his identity and his love, but only when it is too late to act upon it. The final line, 'Jack, I swear,' is a vow of fidelity that replaces the life they could have had.

The most discussed alternative interpretation involves Jack's death. While Lureen claims he died in a freak accident with a tire, Ennis imagines a brutal hate crime. Critics often debate whether Ennis's vision is the 'objective truth' or a manifestation of his own lifelong paranoia and guilt. Additionally, some viewers interpret Ennis not as strictly homosexual, but as 'Jack-sexual,' suggesting his attraction was unique to Jack rather than a broader identity, while others see him as a character struggling with bisexuality under extreme repression.