A wonderful, moving, important film: go see it!

Rating: Null/10 (9 December 2008)

I had high expectations of Milk, being a fan both of Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn, but this film totally surpassed anything I was expecting.
It is beautiful, engaging, moving, stirring, powerful and, of course, ultimately desperately sad in terms of the assassinations of both San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone (no plot spoiler here, since their deaths are announced in newsreel footage within the first few minutes of the movie), but at the same time its portrait of a man of true courage and of the activism he stirred transcends the tragedy.
Penn gives an astonishing performance as Milk, one that I hope earns him this year's Best Actor Oscar, because he captures the humanity, joy and rightful anger of the man without once slipping into any kind of gay stereotype. When you see Milk/Penn's tearful response to the fate of the Anti-Gay Proposition 6 (the "Briggs Initiative", widely promoted by the deeply disturbing so-called Christian singer, Anita Bryant), you witness a moment that feels acutely judged, in terms of Milk's emotions, sexuality and personality. And Penn, who has his own fine record as an activist, brings real passion to Milk's powerful, original and courageous approach to "gay rights."
Josh Brolin, like the entire cast, is outstanding in his role as City Supervisor Dan White, to whom Milk shows great sympathy early on - attending the christening of White's child when all the other supervisors fail to turn up.
Gus Van Sant's direction is a perfectly judged blend of drama, humor and finely-paced use of newsreel, which, along with Danny Elfman's excellent score, draws echoes at times of the Holocaust, given the black and white images of gay men crammed into old police wagons. (I do not mean to diminish the Holocaust, but the echoes seem deliberate, given the Nazis' own persecution of homosexuals.)
While I believe that Elephant remains Van Sant's most remarkable movie in terms of its use of time, its beautiful long tracking shots and silences, and above all its surprising and very underplayed approach to another horrific subject (the Columbine shootings), Milk is a more accessible movie and I hope it finds a wide, wide audience and does great box office, not simply to benefit the movie but to inform the public.
This is a film about fundamental human rights, not gay rights, and it should be seen in particular by all those who continue to campaign, often in the misused name of their religion, against gays and lesbians. The recent passage of Prop. 8 in California, on the same day that President-Elect Obama was swept into office, was a sad irony, and I only pray that ultimately - and soon - everyone will embrace the notion that all people deserve the same rights, that all people experience the same love (if they are lucky) and that in a world where love sometimes seems in short supply, we should celebrate it, not limit it.
Milk is an important film, one of the few this year that is actually about something. I strongly urge everyone to see it.