A Page From History and a Civil Rights Story

Rating: 10/10 (8 December 2008)

I'm a stranger to California. When I heard of the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk I had little idea what it meant, aside the tragedy of two lives stolen through murder.
The film tells as much a civil rights story as it does the personal story of Harvey Milk. Sean Penn gives such a convincing performance I'm frequently believing I'm watching Milk, but Penn isn't the only strong performance in this film, the entire cast is strong and I feel I'm watching history re-enacted in the place and time of events.
How faithful is Milk to actual history? That I cannot say, aside liberties must have been taken at various points because the dead are not here to tell how it was, but as a film underscoring a branch of civil rights it makes a convincing point. Particularly after the passing of California Proposition 8 and other anti-gay rights measures around the United States.