Review: Milk (2008)

[Scott Mendelson]

Milk
2008
128 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Gus Van Sant's Milk is a fine character study and a solid look at a
specific political movement and a certain time and place. It is marred
only by the bitter aftertaste of reality, the tragic knowledge that
not all that much has changed. It is perhaps unfair to look at a movie
through the prism of events that happened after its story, but it is
also impossible not to do so. To paraphrase a song from Hairspray
(another film which was released on the eve of the nullification of
part of its message), while we may have come so far, we truly have so
far to go.

The story of Milk is the story of the last eight years in the life of
San Francisco politician Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn with a
certain gusto that just avoids overacting). In short, Harvey Milk was
the first openly gay man elected to political office (he was elected
to the San Francisco board of Supervisors in 1977). The film
chronicles his political career and, as it befits his campaigns and
issues, his personal life as well. It's a pretty straightforward
biography and never tries to be anything flashier.

Where the film stands out is how it defines Harvey Milk as an
individual politician, rather than as a rorschach blot for the gay
population in San Francisco at the time. Milk's politics were pretty
cut-and-dried social and economic liberalism (supporting expanded
medical services for kids, supporting mass transit, etc). As far as
gay issues, he was a strong proponent of closeted gays coming out (or,
if need be, being forced out) and he strongly believed that gays
should be represented by other gays, rather than by 'sympathetic
liberals'. These are not worldviews held by everyone who happens to be
homosexual, and the film does a solid job in dealing with the
conflicts he faced even in his own community.

The most fascinating relationship is the one he develops with
embittered fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin, in an Oscar-
worthy turn). Although they are often in opposition to each other,
there were agreements here and there and there is a grudging respect
at least at the beginning of their political partnership.

The key conflict of the second half of the film involves the attempted
passage of 'Proposition 6', which would have allowed the firing of gay
teachers (as well as anyone who 'supported gay people'). The parallels
to the successful passage of 'Proposition 8' (which removes the
previously given right for gay people to marry in California) just two
months ago are striking, and cast a sad pall over the picture. Quite
frankly, it is very difficult to be inspired by this groundbreaking
man, when a big part of his legacy has just been spat on in the very
state that he served (further irony in the fact that it was partially
the heavy minority turn out for another ground breaking man that
helped insure passage).

As we see Anita Bryant and John Briggs (the always welcome Dennis
O'Hare) spewing the usual anti-gay slander (Briggs didn't even care
about the issue, it was just a means to an end for him), we realize
that the language (and the often successful results of said language)
hasn't changed one bit over the last thirty years. Regardless of what
strides have been made, intolerance of gay people is still one of the
last vestiges of acceptable bigotry (do you think Rick Warren would
have been invited to Obama's inauguration if he had been an anti-
Semite or openly racist?).

But, if I may step off the soapbox, if we are to judge Milk purely by
the film and not by the current context, it still works well as a well-
acted and well-paced biopic that effectively captures the times in
which it is set. As a time capsule, the film is a success, and it is
consistently entertaining (especially for political junkies like
myself). It is a genuinely political picture, a film that cries out
for activism and/or knowledgeable political engagement. Purely as a
biopic of an important man in the ongoing struggle for gay rights,
Milk is a worthy biopic and a solid motion picture.

Grade: B

* SPOILERS!!! I have always found it fascinating that Harvey Milk, the
pioneering gay politician/activist, was eventually murdered for
reasons that had nothing to do with being gay. Dan White's motives
were purely financial and political. He wanted his recently resigned
supervisor seat back, but the mayor bowed to pressure to keep Milk in
his current position, and he was targeting high-ranking city
politicians in general. Aside from Milk and Mayor Moscone, he
allegedly also intended to kill Willie Brown and Carol Ruth Silver.
There is a great scene in the first season of 24 when Dennis
Haysbert's David Palmer expresses a certain satisfaction that the
assassination plot against him has nothing to do with him wanting to
be the first black president (it's payback for a botched black-ops
mission that he oversaw as a senator). I wonder if Harvey Milk would
have taken any solace from the fact that he didn't die for being gay.