Harvey Milk brings hope.

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2010)

Prior to watching Milk I had no knowledge of the man Harvey Milk accept that he represented a gay community in harsh times, and managed to attain political office. The film is excellent, the screenplay is succinct and informative and Sean Penn sparkles as Harvey Milk in this stirring and gripping social truth.
The film follows the political rise of Harvey Milk who on moving to San Francisco decides to run for political office on the social and moral injustices facing the gay populace. The strength of the film is in its highlighting of the political and social injustices at that time. The incorporation of actual real footage really conveys the deep embedded homophobic prejudices in the United State. Without the real footage I think the film would have struggled to project this sense of underlying tension.
The entire cast excel but Sean Penn is the star. Penn embodies Harvey Milk, he is compelling and enchanting and nuances every action fluently and ceaselessly without fail. Milk represents not only the gay community but the minority populace, he is a lovable and determined individual. Van Sant makes it clear that Milk could not have managed his rise to politics without his close colleagues, and this is an astute point. Harvey Milk was an eccentric and beguiling character but him alone was not the driving force of change it was those pursuing their rights and freedoms.
Within the well-formulated screenplay which stirs the emotions, there are a number of good pieces of cinematography and the costume and set designs are exact.
Milk is more than a film about the man, it is a social commentary of the prejudice faced not only in the gay community but by other minorities as a whole. Milk is a film about social rights, freedoms and the need to hope for a better world for today and tomorrow, and one cannot argue with that.