Interesting, But Ordinary. I Expected More From Gus Van Sant

Rating: 7/10 (2 December 2008)

I had very high hopes for MILK. Over the years I have followed its off and on status and when I saw that Gus Van Sant was directing and Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Josh Brolin etc., were playing the parts, I was ecstatic.
But then the film comes out and it's a respectable piece of work, very well made, by a group of talented professional filmmakers, but nothing to write home about. Everything is plain from the ordinary cinematography by Harris Savides to Danny Elfman's minimal score.
Certainly, music with the big theatrical flourishes Elfman uses when he works with Tim Burton or Sam Raimi would be inappropriate, but something simpler like his score for A Civil Action or Standard Operating Procedure would have added something extra to the mix.
But MILK was not devoid of dramatic jolts, not by a long shot. For example, I was unpleasantly reminded of Anita Bryant's ghastly existence once again.
Although they didn't mention it in the film MILK, while there was a boycott on Coors beer here on the East Coast as well as San Francisco, there was also a boycott of Florida Orange Juice at the same time.
The Florida Orange Growers did not take into account how much money they would lose if gay people boycotted their product. Once that became evident, the orange growers canned industry spokeswoman Anita Bryant very quickly. I find it reassuring to know that money will always trump God; at least here in the USA.
As for Anita Bryant, she just faded into a well-deserved obscurity having done nothing of value in her whole adult life except to foster hate against her fellow American citizens who happened to not be heterosexual.
Again, while I didn't dislike MILK, I didn't like it a whole lot either. I know most people don't like to watch documentaries, but the Oscar winning doco The Times Of Harvey Milk told the real story of Harvey Milk with the real people in a much more moving and dramatic way.
Believe it or not, the documentary even tells you a lot more about Dan White than the feature film does. And while it doesn't make him sympathetic, it does explain his degenerating mind in a much clearer way.
I don't think Dan White was secretly gay, which they hint at in the film MILK, but he was certainly neurotic and needed a lot of psychiatric help. But mostly, he was your typically angry conservative guy who hated anything not straight, not white and not God fearing (at least, what he perceived God fearing to be).
But if a narrative feature doesn't expand our understanding of Harvey Milk either as a human being or as a political animal, then why make the film?
I did like how MILK showed us the manipulative side of Harvey Milk, like when we see him placing a clump of dog poop exactly where he knew the TV cameras would be focusing on him so he could step in it, right on cue and prove his point about the need for San Francisco to enact a "Pooper Scooper" law.
Harvey Milk instinctively understood that local TV news audiences would love to see someone from city hall ruin his shoes by stepping in dog crap and he knew the TV stations would run that clip constantly. By all accounts, Harvey Milk knew exactly how to milk publicity, but that's what made him an effective San Francisco City Supervisor.
Now, contrast that with the scenes between Harvey (Sean Penn) and his needy Hispanic boyfriend Jack Lira (Diego Luna). While the suicide of a lover in real life can be devastating to the surviving partner, those scenes just took up time and added nothing to my understanding of Harvey Milk as a man.
Interestingly, the documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk does not go into this part of Harvey's life although it mentions several of his other lovers and we certainly see the real Jack Lira in archival film footage.
Ultimately, that was my problem with MILK, it was too conventional. When I see a Gus Van Sant film, I want Gus Van Sant, not Ron Howard. Ron Howard can't do anything BUT conventional and ordinary.
Whereas Gus Van Sant is a film artist of great depth, feeling, intelligence and variety (words never used to describe Ron Howard's film work).
It may not be fair, but I expected a lot more from Gus and I felt let down.