REVIEW: Milk (2008)

Milk

Rated: R

Runtime: 128 minutes

Starring: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, James Franco

My Rating: Five stars.

Your Rating (Click stars to rate):

Milk had to be a great movie. Anything less would have been an insult to Harvey Milk and everything he fought to change. It had to be true to the story, true to the people in it and, most importantly, true to the people still fighting for equal rights in the LGBT community.

This film had been in the works for 15 years, but never had everything come together until now.

Focus Features took on the project and put all the right people into place. Director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) wanted to make this back in the 1990s. He's been tracking it since he began his career in 1982. Sean Penn signed on to play Milk, and he deservedly earned a “Best Actor” Oscar nomination for this role.

Penn is never afraid to take a risk, and he nails this performance. The cast around him is also brilliant, especially James Franco as Scott, Milk's only true love.

It's unfortunate that Milk won't make much money at the box office in its first wide-release weekend. American audiences aren't ready for this one, yet.

But it's still a great movie. It's a good thing, too, since there was so much riding on it. The story wasn't all that long ago and the fighting continues to exist today. California passed Proposition 8, eliminating the ability for gay couples to legally marry, on election day 2008. The outrage that followed shows us the issues presented in Milk are still very prevalent today.

Milk's fight was against Proposition 6, a bill which would have caused gay school teachers and those who associated with them to lose their jobs. His fight cost him his life, and forever made him a martyr for the gay community.

The script draws an obvious line between the homosexuals and the rest of society. And what Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black do is make sure we never see the human side of the heterosexuals.

Milk's second campaign slogan is “Harvey Milk vs. The Machine,” further dehumanizing the mid-1970s government, while showing us the personal side of the gay community.

This needed to happen simply because this movie topic is still taboo, no matter how many of us like to say it isn't. We all needed to connect with something, and that's achieved through one emotion: love. Milk loves his longtime partner Scott. When we see that in the opening scenes, regardless of sexual orientation or preference, we can relate to the feeling. We needed to see that Milk is a human to break down the stereotypes. If that doesn't happen, then the film risks the audience not caring about his cause. We also needed to see the government as evil. The best way to do that is to never show us their emotions. Milk succeeds in those tasks.

Dan White (Josh Brolin), the man who eventually kills Milk and Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber), and Senator Briggs (Dennis O'Hare) are the most robotic. Both opponents calculate every move with precision. Before Milk, nothing stood in their way of getting their bills passed and getting elected to the next level of office. But now, with one kink in the machinery, the whole system is on the verge of crumbling. Neither like it, but we certainly do.

Through dehumanizing the opposition, the audience can really focus on what Milk is trying to accomplish in his campaigns and in office. Once we buy into the cause, we start to pull for it. And when that happens, the movie has little left to do other than tell the story as accurately as possible.

Accuracy is perhaps the most important thing in a historical film like Milk. If it's not accurate, then it turns into propaganda. Milk is very accurate. There are thousands of articles available online and through libraries which back each event. On top of that, since this story took place only 30 years ago, many of the people involved are still alive. Van Sant and Black interviewed them all to make sure this story was right.

If that wasn't enough, the movie opens with Milk reading his own political biography into a tape recorder. It's only to be played in the event of his assassination. That actually happened. The script was practically already written. This is Milk's lasting legacy. He may have been a martyr, but his words will always live.

Milk doesn't just serve as a biopic of the man's life and accomplishments. It brings to the forefront the dilemmas still facing the gay community. It reignites the conversations that must happen for change. Because of all it does outside of the theater, it continues the message of hope started by Harvey Milk. Five stars.

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Don't believe me about the tape?

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Where it's playing:

St. Lawrence County — The Roxy/Potsdam: Click here for showtimes.

Jefferson County — Click here for showtimes.

Other area movie theater listings:

The Screening Room, Kingston, ON: Click here for current listings

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Comments? E-mail me.