it's a miracle that the ang lee's adaptation is far more poignant and fleshed out than the original despite being a near 1-to-1 adaption in plot and dialogue

anyway, here's my letterboxd review, which applies to the film but not the short story lol

a queer revisioning of american romanticism where the fantasy of the wilds, of an escape from societal alienation, converges with a rupture of heteronormativity

the american pastoral becomes a landscape of sensual becoming, a signifier of freedom from domesticity, as well as freedom towards a love that transgresses the reproductive needs of capital

yet even this fantasy is sustained only through capital; odd jobs, horses, utes; we are fenced in, like sheep, by physical and psychical lines of demarcation; dogs yelp and we scatter, get mixed up, lose ourselves in the throng for years, never knowing when we'll come to, find ourselves in the eyes of our lover, in their lips, blood, and sweat

and then nothing remains but that which could have been