Not Lactose Intolerant for Milk

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2009)

It's hard not to watch Milk and think it is not a labor of love by Gus Van Sant. Great care and attention to detail was taken to make this film and it shows in every shot. But, that is not to say it is a great film but a good film nonetheless. For those who are not aware (like myself), Milk is the biopic of the first openly gay City Supervisor of San Francisco, Harvey Milk. He was assassinated in November of 1978 in City Hall. The film shows his rise and tragic murder. Harvey Milk stood up for Gay Civil Rights and put himself on the firing line to make his voice and opinions heard and he became a martyr for his cause.
But, unlike great biopics of martyrs like Gandhi, Malcolm X (I am still waiting for a definitive look at Martin Luther King), Milk does not have a strong arc to make us become more engaged in his story. By all accounts, Harvey Milk was a regular, ordinary guy. But, like many at the time, he was closeted for presumably a long period of his life before he came out and at 40 started a whole new life to make a difference(as a new member of the 40 club, I took notice of that). Yet, we only hear a reference of him not wanting to come out and upset his family. There is a point in the film where he demands young gay men to come out to their parents and thrusts a phone in one of his friends face to call them immediately. At another point, he was arguing with his would be killer, Dan White about why this was personal and not just another issue for him. To make his arguments about why gays should come out would've made the film more compelling if they would've showed his struggles with secrecy in his early life. Instead, we see Milk, (played well by Sean Penn) having one note throughout the film. There is no arc to his character. Not many changes occur and as a film lover, I want to see those arcs. It makes for better story telling.
Harvey Milk was a politician and one of the main segments of the film was devoted to his being against Proposition 6 (the attempt to ban gay schoolteachers from public schools) which did not pass. It's hard not to be reminded of the current controversial passing of Prop 8(the restriction of marriage by same sex couples) as its backdrop. Sean Penn in his acceptance speech railed against it, but I found it odd that he was not in the DVD extras talking about playing Milk. And speaking of the acting.
Sean Penn in the lead role, certainly looked the part. His dialect seemed to go in and out at times into areas that reminded me of his character in I Am Sam. Overall, he did a good job but at times, it was hard to sense how he felt, as it seemed he was focused too much on mannerisms than emotions. I think Sean Penn is an excellent actor, but I did not find this to be one of his strongest roles and was saddened he lost the Oscar to Mickey Rourke. Others in the cast include James Franco who was solid as Scott Smith, Milks' long time lover and first campaign manager. However, Emilie Hirsch was sorely out of place as the great advocate Cleve Jones (who was the creator of the AIDS Quilt). I found his performance to be over his head and at times, he seemed to be play acting. I had no feeling about him at all. It was as if he didn't take the role seriously enough, at least to my perspective. Diego Luna plays Jack, the jilted, abandoned lover who goes over the edge when Harvey does not meet his excessively needy demands for attention. This role has been done many times in many films and nothing new was really added to this type of role. It seemed to have just been thrown together to add some form of angst but I didn't buy it. Josh Brolin does a decent job of Dan White (Milk and Mayor Moscone's assassin) but I did not find him to be utterly believable or his role as being clear either. However, I did find the character of State Senator Briggs, played by Denis O'Hare to be truthful and someone that exuded disgust which was palpable. I was expecting better performances from an Oscar Nominated Best Picture contender. Just makes me bitter that Synecdoche, NY was not given much consideration.
Gus Van Sant does a good job at directing. I still think his early works like Drugstore Cowboy and Good Will Hunting (my personal favorite of his work) to be much stronger films. But, Milk is a good film to watch. It always feels good about seeing someone fight for equality and basic civil rights that are guaranteed us all. The world is a better place for people like Harvey Milk to have been in it. http://tbreviewer.blogspot.com/