Milk Review

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 12.04.2008

Sean Penn turns in one of the performances of the year in a powerful and engaging film.

Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Written by: Dustin Lance Black

Starring:
Sean Penn - Harvey Milk
Emile Hirsch - Cleve Jones
Josh Brolin - Dan White
James Franco - Scott Smith
Diego Luna - Jack Lira
Victor Garber - Mayor George Moscone
Denis O'Hare - Senator John Briggs
Ashlee Temple - Dianne Feinstein
Alison Pill - Anne Kronenberg
Tom Ammiano - himself
Lucas Grabeel - Danny Nicoletta
Stephen Spinella - Rick Stokes
Joseph Cross - Dick Pabich
Danny Nicoletta - Carl Carlson



Running Time: 128 minutes
Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief violence.

Sean Penn has come a long way in his career. The man once best known as being stoner icon Jeff Spicolli and Madonna's violently crazy husband has undergone a career renaissance over the last decade or so to become one of the most respected and talented actors working in Hollywood today. Starting with an Academy Award-nominated turn in 1995’s Dead Man Walking, Penn has managed to shed the bad boy image he picked up in the 1980’s and focus on his work. More quality performances followed, including Oscar nominated performances in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam, before he finally won the gold with as an ex-con seeking answers for the death of his daughter in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. Since then, he’s taken only a few roles, focusing more on political matters, although he took the time to direct last year’s masterful Into the Wild. Now, with politics still clearly on his mind, he leads an ensemble cast in Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk.

Milk details the last eight years in the life of Harvey Milk (Penn), who was the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office in America and then, eleven months later, became the first openly gay politician to be assassinated. At the time that the movie begins, he is just shy of his fortieth birthday, working as an investment banker and worrying that his life has become a waste and he hasn’t actually achieved anything. Eager to find a deeper purpose for his life, he moves with his lover Scott Smith (Franco) to San Francisco, where they open up a camera store located within the a neighborhood known as the Castro. While the neighborhood is very gay-centric, several holdover businesses are hostile to them. Harvey and Scott’s camera shop quickly becomes a place where the community comes to talk about issues affecting them, and Harvey is spurred on to take political action. With the support of several other activists, including Cleve Jones (Hirsch), Harvey moves into the political arena. After earning a reputation as a community organizer, Harvey runs for office, having a few unsuccessful bids before finally winning. There are costs along the way, including failed relationships with both Smith and Jack Lira (Luna), as well as a fateful acquaintance with Dan White (Brolin). Dan is a member of the Board of Supervisors who is anti-gay and resents Milk’s presence on the Board. The conflict of Harvey and Dan’s complex relationship drive the film to its inevitable and impossible to hide conclusion.

Milk was written by Dustin Lance Black, who has been best known up until now as a writer and producer on HBO’s critically-acclaimed Big Love. There is no getting around the politics of the film and the script; it is not an exaggeration in any way, shape or form to say that those who are opposed to the gay rights movement in America will have serious difficulties with the plot. Harvey Milk’s life was one of political activism and crusading for the rights of people regardless of sexual orientation; his life and death where true watershed moments for the gay community, and to tell the story in any way other then it is here would be more a detriment to the movie and to what Milk achieved. Significantly though, Black and director Gus Van Sant do not attempt to canonize Milk. While there certainly is a political leaning to the film, and the man on whom it focuses is an icon, they do it a credit by making Harvey Milk not an icon so much as a man who found a purpose to his life and followed it with conviction and passion. He has his flaws, and they alienate people from him…with tragic consequences for some. Black clearly did his work researching the script; while no film is 100% faithful to the true story, he stays to the facts as much as possible. He is helped along ably by Van Sant, a director whose talents have been on display for many years. Since his back-to-back flounderings with 1999’s Psycho remake and 2000’s bland Finding Forrester, Van Sant has moved back to his independent roots with deservedly-acclaimed films like Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park.. In this, his first big-budget film in eight years, Van Sant sticks to what he knows best. While the film is infinitely more mainstream in feel then his more recent work, he dedicates himself fully and unequivocally to the project. Van Sant is known for taking on passion projects, and his passion for Milk resonates with the care and attention that he affords every aspect of the film. He weaves archival footage into the film and provides us with the real-life locations in the dramatization, and the absolute dedication to authenticity works to the movie’s benefit in infinite ways.

Ultimately, as much as this is Van Sant and Black’s film, the true person who owns every minute of it is Sean Penn. Penn has turned in many remarkably performances over the years, and Harvey Milk is perhaps one of his best. Penn has never been a particularly warm person in any of his roles, but as Harvey he is pure magic. While Penn does an excellent job of transforming himself into Milk, it is the spirit that he captures—the empathy, accessibility and honesty of the man—that is most striking. Much like Black and Van Sant, Penn is dedicated to making sure that Harvey is not viewed as a saint, but as a man who’s conviction and aspirations changed the face of the country. It is a triumph that Penn can pull off as warm of a performance as this and it is transfixing from start to finish. He’s also surrounded by a very able cast who do their job amazingly well. James Franco is incredibly natural and engaging as Milk’s first love Smith. Franco turns in yet another quality performance when he has relatively little to work with, and he does an excellent job of keeping up with Penn. Emile Hirsch is also excellent as Cleve Jones, the young activist who helps Milk along on his path. Hirsch is an actor far more deserving then contemporary Shia LeBeouf as the face of the future, and he proves that again here. Diego Luna captures the role of Jack Lira with style and flair. Above all the supporting cast, however, stands Josh Brolin. Brolin has, much like Penn, undergone a career renaissance over the last couple of years, with starring roles in diverse fare as Planet Terror, No Country For Old Men, American Gangster and this year’s W. shooting his star back through the roof. He is almost as good as Penn here as Dan White, the conflicted and tormented man who’s internal issues will destroy more lives than just his own. As much as Penn surely deserves Oscar consideration for Milk, Brolin should be one of the names in the running when Best Supporting Actor is being considered, as he nails this lynchpin role through and through.

Certainly, this will not be a film for everyone; its political leanings will turn several off, and that’s unfortunate. It would have been impossible to make the movie in any other way however, and those who do not see it due to its politics will be missing out. As much as Milk is about the gay rights movement, it is even more a story about a man who, much like our president-elect, made a difference as a community organizer, and in so doing changed everything. The spirit of Harvey Milk manages to overcome his politics, and the result is easily one of the best films of the year.

The 411: Anchored by one of the best and most honest performances Sean Penn has ever given in his career, Gus Van Sant's latest film Milk is a must-see movie for those who don't take too much issue with the obvious political leanings. Van Sant takes Dustin Lance Black's powerful script and creates something truly rare--a political biopic that manages to succeed on almost every level. Penn is backed by powerful supporting performances by Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, James Franco and especially Josh Brolin as Dan White, a role that needs to be remembered by the Academy come Oscar time. Milk is truly one of the best films of the year, a powerful story of how a man can make a difference without needing to be a saint.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]