Living history
Photo: Sean Penn and Harvey Milk
The events described in Milk seem like records from a distant era, so it’s startling to realize that they happened just 30 years ago. Movies based on the lives of public figures tend to play like history lessons—you keep glancing at your watch to see how much more edification you must endure—but Gus Van Sant has crafted a vital and compelling piece of cinema. Based on the life of the assassinated gay rights activist turned San Francisco supervisor, Milk is the story of how one citizen becomes involved in the political life of a nation.
Harvey, a New York-born insurance company employee, moves to San Francisco with his boyfriend and opens a camera shop on the Castro. It’s the early Seventies: a gay man risks losing his job if he is exposed. He soon finds that San Francisco is not as tolerant as he’d hoped, and the Christian right is waging war on anyone who disagrees with them. Harvey quickly marshals the power of numbers, organizing the gay residents in a boycott of Coors beer and building an alliance with the Teamsters, of all people. It dawns on Harvey and his friends that if they want to be left alone and treated just like everyone else, they have to fight.
The political awakening of Harvey Milk is presented without rhetoric or phony sentimentality. Harvey learns politics the hard way, losing in three elections. He becomes a savvy politician—he adjusts his personal style, then repackages himself as a mediator when a riot threatens to break out—but you never forget that he’s a human being (with a messy personal life embodied at one point by Diego Luna). This is possible because the actor playing Milk is so good, you forget that he is the great Sean Penn. He is surrounded by a fine cast including James Franco as his boyfriend, Emile Hirsch as the part-time hustler who becomes his fiercest operative, and Josh Brolin, who hints at the inner terror and self-loathing of the assassin Dan White. (He also played Dubya in the Oliver Stone movie.) Milk is the stirring tale of an outsider who fought his way in so he could fling the closet doors open.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
February 11th, 2009 at 11:47
hey that makes me want to review my no-movies policy.
February 11th, 2009 at 13:12
I’m 22 and I still haven’t done a thing. Envy Harvey.
February 11th, 2009 at 19:39
Milk was so good, I almost wept.
February 11th, 2009 at 23:15
Didn’t like this film.
February 12th, 2009 at 13:34
I had assumed that San Francisco in the 70s was more tolerant of gay culture than was depicted in the movie. I was wrong obviously, and Harvey Milk’s story is all the more remarkable. Penn is brilliant, especially because he resists chewing the scenery. My favorite scenes are the quiet ones: Milk talking to the Emile Hirsch character upon the latter’s return from Spain, his introduction of the lone female to his team, the interrupted phone call with a disabled young gay teen, the school debate with the homophobic senator. Haven’t seen the 3 other Best Picture nominees yet, but between this and Benjamin Button, Milk is more deserving of the Oscar.
February 19th, 2009 at 19:32
i have watched The Wrestler and Milk and both lead actors gave outstanding performances..
but
i’m rooting for Sean Penn for the Best Actore trophy at the Oscars (fingers crossed).
Katie for best actress ( hands down)
:)
September 28th, 2010 at 12:39
“Milk is the stirring tale of an outsider who fought his way in so he could fling the closet doors open.” – Probably the best movie logline I’ve read in a long time. I mean, wow.