It's a love story starring two faggots.
Worse -- it is a love story about 2 sheep herders not cowboys.
Now we know where these deviants turn when the sheep start getting too boring...
Actually, it's not about "sheep herders" either since neither of the two characters does any of that (I read the story, haven't seen, won't be seeing, the film).
The entire story is just about two homosexual males who betray everyone in their lives, including themselves, their families, their employer (who spies on their evil deeds from another hilltop), their job duties...
There's nothing in this story about "love." There is only the reinforcement for homosexuals that ethical betrayals and homosexual deviance as to sexuality is the thing to watch and contemplate.
That is literally all that the film and the disgusting and digustingly badly written story from whence the film has been adapted are about.
Don't even get me started on author Proulx and the awards she has received for butchering and deviant abuse of the English language.