"Ennis's and Jack's acute emotions -- yearning, loneliness, disappointment, loss, love and, yes, lust -- are affecting because they are universal. But while the screenplay, by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, adheres closely to the Proulx original, it even more vividly roots the movie in the rural all-American
milieu, with its forlorn honky-tonks and small-town Fourth of July picnics, familiar from elegiac McMurtry works like
The Last Picture Show."