What a lovely moving film.

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2008)

Milk - Milk chronicles the last eight years of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn)'s life as he fights for gay rights in the 1970s. It's hard to evaluate films in a vortex. It's especially hard when so much concerning gay rights affects people every day. In the 1970s there was a nationwide movement to ban openly gay citizens from numerous positions including teaching. They were (and still are) put in the same camp as sexual deviants, pedophiles and those who partake in bestiality.
Brokeback Mountain was the favorite film of everyone for its topic of gay characters. However it was also an imperfect somewhat boring film largely bereft of entertainment value aside from a great performance from the late great Heath Ledger. Aside from what its viewers attached to it, Brokeback was just a love story without any real political stance, though a stepping stone for better future homosexual films.
Milk, on the other hand, has (real) gay characters stepping out of the closet, making a stance on their situation as the more conservative side of society steps on their rights to even function as regular members of society. This film is about hope, equality and justice. It's about the first gay man to demand and seize his rights rather than wait petulantly for someone to take pity. What a fascinating and genuinely nice person Harvey Milk was if we judge by Sean Penn's performance. It's almost laughable to think that anyone should be afraid of him. Harvey was such a sweet fellow, but persistent and inventive as heck.
Issues aside (and that's hard to do here), Milk is an entertaining well made film that I feel like I could watch over again, something only the masochistic could say of Brokeback Mountain. Gas Van Sant is no stranger to homosexuality in his films, though he gives it sentimentally and sensitivity unlike with My Own Private Idaho. Milk is very moving as well. The end is sure to move you. The imagery too is just wonderful. I enjoyed the aesthetics Van Sant uses in some shots like the scene shot from the reflection of a safety whistle offered as protection. I was reminded of Kinsey once in awhile. The films share the same sort of tone. That film was about being comfortable with ourselves sexually. This one is about being comfortable with what others do. We have to love and respect each other as brothers and sisters without the quibbling over what is "right". We just need to agree that what's important is what "right for you." Charming, entertaining and moving, Milk gets an A-