Is America ready to embrace a movie about two macho cowboys who fall hopelessly and confusingly in love? The makers of the brave and beautiful "Brokeback Mountain" hope so.

The film, based on an eloquent Annie Proulx short story and often referred to as that "gay cowboy" movie, rides into release on a wave of Oscar speculation. Some, including Newsweek magazine, claim it's a breakthrough film.

Although "Brokeback" has earned raves on the film festival circuit, and its two hot actors — Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal — have been praised for their rich, raw performances, uncertainty lingers about whether the movie will reach a wide audience.

After all, it's about a semi-literate ranch hand and a rambunctious rodeo cowboy who, in 1963, find themselves unexpectedly and irreversibly attracted to each other. The film is candid in depicting the love between these men, and not all viewers may be ready for that.

But don't be surprised if "Brokeback" achieves broader appeal, says the former president of marketing and distribution for the Northern American division of Columbia Pictures. ("Brokeback" is being distributed by Focus Features.)

"If it's a good piece of entertainment, it's probably going to rise above that," said Peter Sealey, now a marketing professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He notes the success of 1969's "Midnight Cowboy," a provocative film with a gay subtext that defied Hollywood oddsmakers and overcame the kiss-of-death X rating to win best picture as well as an Oscar for its director, John Schlesinger, a gay man.

While "Brokeback Mountain" is clearly a quality film, and one that will likely be an Oscar contender as well, it is also groundbreaking.

Unlike other mainstream films featuring gay protagonists, "Brokeback" doesn't shy away from showing two rugged young men wrestling with love and lust, including a fiery sexual encounter in a tent between the taciturn Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and the lively Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal). But "Brokeback" is never gratuitous or overtly explicit; it just tells it like it is.

Pair that candor with the fractious national debate about gays being allowed to marry and enter the priesthood, and it doesn't take a Hollywood insider to realize "Brokeback" might face an uphill battle at the box office.

Yet its acclaimed director, Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the gay-themed "The Wedding Banquet"), remains optimistic that the story will resonate with moviegoers, much as it did with him when he first read it four years ago. He thinks audiences will identify with the eternal theme: that elusive and often indescribable thing called love.

"We'll joke about gay cowboys and gay Western," said Lee, in San Francisco promoting the movie. "But that's not an accurate description of this love story. It's a very sensitive one, and I hope that it will peel away the obstacles, and people will look at it as a sensitive story and examine the humanity about it. That's something we all can relate to."

Still, "Brokeback Mountain" is a romance about two men in love. "It is what it is," says Lee. "I mean, we don't pretend it is not. I hope we can liberate from that."

Many agree that the greatest hurdle could be forming a line at the box office.

"I think the challenge for the film is getting people into the theaters, and that's all in the hands of the marketing and public relations people," says Michael Lumpkin, executive director of Frameline, the San Francisco gay and lesbian film organization.