Movie Review

Milk

Every year I have a moment like this. It's the time when I hear of an astounding film that transcends cinema and is the “Best American Movie of the Year." Then I look at it and I say I enjoyed it but have no idea what people were smoking before they went to see it. I’ll call this “Pan’s Labyrinth/Million Dollar Baby” syndrome and I think I caught a pretty good case of it with “Milk," director Gus Van Sant’s flick about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. It’s a sometimes provocative, funny and very well acted movie with Sean Penn at the forefront giving another Oscar worthy performance. Just it didn’t blow me away. It’s the kind of believe in hope film that I’ve seen many times before and it's meant to make you stand up and cheer but all it really does is time-to-time rouse your interest.

Penn is Harvey Milk, a gay 40-something looking for a change with his young lover, Scott (James Franco). He relocates to Castro Street in San Francisco where he and Scott found a small camera shop. In the early 1970’s discrimination was being worn right out in the open, even by the police, and Milk saw this and said “that ain’t right.” Before anybody knew what hit them, more gays moved into Castro and Milk became their leader. He formed a sort of Gay Mafia. Businesses had to be accepting of them or Milk would campaign for their immediate demise and he wasn’t kidding. The guy took down Coors beer. Still the fear of even walking down the street and being gay at night was a scary situation and Milk saw that he had to do more. He became an outspoken agent for change and with the support of many people in the neighborhood, including activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), he runs a campaign that lands him elected on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in District 5.

It’s a compelling history lesson, I’ll give it that. For a gay man to even consider trying to both please the electorate while still trying to play with the big boys in power is a situation rife with problems. There were even some powerful gay men who opposed Milk’s way of thinking and it didn’t stop there. Van Sant does a nice job of incorporating a 70’s look to the film. The costumes, faded old-fashioned video camera shots, and old news footage featuring singer Anita Bryant encouraging people to take away gay rights and Walter Cronkite breaking all the news on Prop 6, a Joseph McCarthy-like campaign against gay teachers, all add something. Anything gay was considered a boiling point, leading to debates and riots that make good points and encourage you to think about how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go in terms of tolerance.

What ultimately makes “Milk” less of an experience is that it feels so familiar. It wants to be controversial and say good things but at the end of the day you feel like it's trying more to be Oscar bait. It’s speechy and preachy and at times just looks like every other rabble-rousing drama I’ve ever seen before. The only exception is that this one does have more male on male sex, intimacy, and two heartbreaking subplots that show us gay love ain’t that much different from straight and for that I give it credit.

Sean Penn also gets props here for a real and compassionate performance that stands as one of the best of the year. He makes Harvey a unifier with pride and determination as well as a very gentle and loving gay man. The rest of the cast can’t shine nearly as brightly but some do come off fairly well. Franco has a few good and tender scenes as Scott and Diego Luna holds his own perfectly with Penn as Harvey’s doting but mentally-affected fling after Scott leaves the picture. Emile Hirsch is catty and funny as Harvey’s assistant, and Josh Brolin, playing another recently elected supervisor who clashes with Harvey many times, is self-righteous and filled with disdain. It’s Penn and Van Sant's show though and they make a movie that, while not great, is nonetheless entertaining and interesting. “Milk” is a good movie about tolerance and about hope. You’ve seen it before, but this one has just enough good material to make you want to see it again.

Craig's Grade: B

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%