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Movie Review by:
Jim "Good Old JR" Rutkowski
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Directed by:
Gus Van Sant |
Written by:
Dustin Lance Black |
Starring:
Sean Penn, Allison Pill, Josh Brolin |
Running time:
128 minutes
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Released:
11/26/08
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Rated R
for language, some sexual
content and brief violence. |
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"...expertly made, rich with humor and poignancy to give a convincing,
panoramic portrait of the city, an era, and the man who changed both."
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"I'm Harvey Milk, and I want to recruit you." That was the opening line that
Milk (Sean Penn), the San Francisco activist who became one of the first openly
gay persons elected to public office, would often give when he spoke to crowds.
Although Milk is rightly seen as one of the key players in organizing gays and
lesbians as a national political force, there's an undertone of humility in that
statement that seems to be key to understanding Milk.
He didn't see himself as a leader, but as a recruiter for a growing, unstoppable
movement. He never tired of going out to bus stops in the city's Castro District
and enlisting young gay men who had just arrived from conservative towns like
Wichita or Knoxville or Green Bay to the cause.
Recognizing that distinction helps make "Milk" a wonderful and important film.
In charting Milk's rise to power and his tragic murder, director Gus Van Sant
and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black tell a sweeping story that's similar in its
arc to other political biopics. But the film is always attuned to what was
different about Milk and different about the gay rights movement, never
resorting to cliche and never making Milk out to be a saint. He was a great man
who seemed to approach even a city council meeting with the same unbridled joy,
but he was a flawed man, too.
Today, San Francisco is thought of as the most gay-friendly city in America, so
it's quite striking when Van Sant starts the film in 1972 and shows us a city
that's just as intolerant toward gays as any other. When Milk and his lover
Scott (James Franco) move there from New York and try to open a camera store on
Castro Street, they're told that the local merchants' association and the cops
will make sure they don't succeed.
But Milk is not the sort who gets intimidated; his beatific smile and unending
compassion come in tandem with canny instincts and a steel will. In the title
role, Penn gives one of those performances that is so transformative and deeply
felt that the line between actor and role blurs in the mind. He makes himself
physically resemble Milk somewhat, but it's more the way Penn (an actor not
exactly known for his sunny disposition) embodies Milk's unflagging decency that
makes this one of his very best performances.
Castro Camera becomes a beachhead of sorts in the city, drawing gay men together
as a community (including Emile Hirsch in a witty turn as a street hustler) that
supports and protects each other. Eventually, Milk is dubbed the "Mayor of
Castro Street" (possibly by himself) and turns that community into a potent
political force. "We weren't just a bunch of pansies," Milk says in the film.
"We had our first taste of real power."
While the older gay activists in the city prefer to cautiously lay low and make
alliances with sympathetic straight politicians, Milk runs again and again for
public office. He loses again and again, but each loss makes him smarter about
the process and more driven to run again.
He eventually is elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and from
there the film chronicles Milk's two biggest political battles; one at the city
level to get a gay civil rights bill passed, the other at the state level
against Proposition 6, which would allow teachers to be fired on the basis of
their sexual orientation.
That struggle, of course, invites parallels to the current fight over
California's just-passed Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, and in fact
some Prop 8 opponents are using "Milk" as a rallying point for their cause. What
those modern-day connections illustrate is both how long the battle has been
joined between the same forces, and how gay rights has made such progress. We'll
never go back to the day (shown in the film) when a politician pointedly wipes
his hand with a handkerchief after shaking Milk's, and it's because of people
like Milk that we won't.
"Milk" deftly balances its political elements with Milk's personal life,
including a relationship with a mentally unstable lover (Diego Luna). And we
also see Milk's growing tension with a "family values" city supervisor, Dan
White (Josh Brolin in an effectively clamped-down performance), which leads to
tragedy.
As a director, Van Sant has taken a few years off from making conventional films
like "Good Will Hunting," and the detour into more impressionistic arthouse fare
like "Gerry" and "Paranoid Park" has done him good. "Milk" is expertly made,
rich with humor and poignancy, using a mix of recreated scenes shot in San
Francisco and archival footage to give a convincing, panoramic portrait of the
city, an era, and the man who changed both. |
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MILK © 2009 Focus Features
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2009 Alternate Reality, Inc.
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