Lukewarm

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2009)

The life of Harvey Milk, which through his own admission was nothing special at forty certainly contains all the elements for absorbing cinema. A charismatic late blooming civil rights activist, he mobilized a marginalized segment of society into a political power with a relentless determination that went from a series of political defeats to victory and eventually martyrdom. Milk's mercurial rise and fall is an absorbing story but perhaps too brief to justify it's over two hour running time.
Director Gus Van Zandt opens Milk by economically summing up his adult years and what he faced as a gay man in New York with documentary photos and footage of the famed Stonewall incident in the early 60's. With this as a backdrop we are introduced to the priapic Milk (Sean Penn) cruising a guy on a subway platform. Becoming lovers they decide to escape the oppressive east coast scene and go Greeley. Moving to San Francisco they open a camera store. Milk once again experiences bigotry but this time he decides like those at the Stonewall to take a stand. Successfully employing the same boycott tactics that Civil Rights groups did in the segregationist South in the fifties he finds his voice and becomes a leading activist in SFs gay community. Running for office he is defeated twice but perseveres and is eventually elected a city manager where he locks horns with conservative ex-cop Dan White, his and the city mayor's ultimate assassin. Milk's greatest battle though is with American as apple pie orange juice pitch person and homophobe poster child Anita Bryant who is zealously attempting to blacklist gay school teachers throughout the country.
Through Milk's character Van Zandt carefully and clearly conveys the struggle for equality an end to the blatant discrimination homosexuals faced in the seventies. It is an historically significant story but Milk's private life is mostly soap opera and it breaks the torrid pace of the events taking place on the world stage. Van Zandt tries to elevate it with operatic crutches (literally employing Tosca) but it becomes mired in self indulgence and repetitious scenes of Harvey half lit speaking into a tape recorder and this deadens the rhythm of the film.
Sean Penn is incredibly moving as Milk. Avoiding the over the top scenery chewing he served up in the recent All the King's Men remake, he gives us a man of commitment whose greatest strength was not to take himself so seriously. Penn deftly sidesteps queening it up (going Capote) with wonderfully controlled nuance and inflection bringing a great degree of dignity to the character.
Beyond Penn's performance, the rest of the cast offers little more than reactions and Van Zandt fails to explore in much depth the crucial character of Dan White, up tightly overplayed by Josh Brolin. The film's only other intriguing character is to be found in the documentary footage of Miss Anita Bryant spewing her blind hatred in a most ladylike fashion and it is a chilling performance to witness.