Film review: Milk

Harvey Milk burst onto the San Francisco political scene when the Watergate scandal propelled him to run for the role of city supervisor. After four years of unsuccessful campaigns he achieved victory in 1977, becoming the first openly gay man to win public office in California. While opposing homophobia he also built alliances with other minorities and supported the elderly, unions, public transport and education.

Along with Mayor Moscone he was fatally shot by a political rival, Dan White, in 1978, and the seven-year sentence White received -- he served only five years -- led to the infamous White Night Riots in San Francisco. Milk's memory has been lovingly preserved and there are a plaza, school and recreation centre named after him but his story is not widely known. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and director Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Junebug, Paranoid Park) bring that story vividly to the screen in the biopic Milk.


Rather than trying to cover Milk's entire life, Black has wisely chosen to start the story with Milk turning 40, meeting his partner Scott Smith and fleeing New York for San Francisco where they open a camera store in the famous 'gay ghetto' known as the Castro. From there we experience the major political stepping stones that led to Milk's election to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977. However, the film is bookended with scenes of a tired Milk sitting alone in his kitchen, hunched over a tape recorder and describing his political ascent, believing that sooner or later the assassin's bullet will find him.

The Stonewall riots that many believe kicked off Gay Liberation had only taken place in 1969 and in the 1970s a repressive police force targeted gay men and tolerated gay bashings. This had helped to fuel Milk's activism, and as a businessowner in the Castro he was one of the first to understand the power of the pink dollar.

Interwoven with Milk's campaigns and their aftermath is the story of a vicious religious-right reaction to Gay Liberation. All over the USA, the religious right, led by the singer Anita Bryant, spearheaded a series of referendums to repeal enlightened state legislation that banned discrimination against gays in employment and housing. In California, this resulted in the sinister Proposition 6, which would have outlawed gay people teaching in the state's public schools.

At the end of the day, this is a conventionally structured biopic with a strong emphasis on the politics. I was heartened and saddened by the story, and left with the feeling that I had seen a good film rather than a great one. I think this is because so much of the focus is on Milk and his political trajectory, with the growing anger and political energy of San Francisco gays as the main backdrop: and while Milk's courage and persistence are extraordinary, he is in many ways lovably ordinary.

Prior to the assassination Milk's killer, Dan White, had resigned as city supervisor but unsuccessfully requested his job back. The angry gay community had no doubt that the verdict of manslaughter and low sentence he received were due to homophobia. White went on to commit suicide two years after his release from prison and the film's slant on his motives for the murder may be controversial.

The acting is exemplary. Sean Penn, who stars as Milk, has been nominated for an Academy Award. No wonder -- he appears to channel Milk rather than play him. Straight men playing gay men don't always get it right, sometimes exhibiting a macho intensity that feels repressive. In contrast, Penn relaxes into the sharp but easygoing character Milk seems to have been, a personable, compassionate guy with political brilliance and nerves of steel.

Emile Hirsch is unrecognisable but excellent as a young supporter of Milk's, Cleve Jones, in huge aviator sunglasses and what looks like a curly wig. James Franco is sweet and easygoing as Milk's long-term lover, Scott Smith. Alison Pill is effective but too cutesy as the lesbian campaign manager who helps to spearhead his eventual victory.

Unashamed nostalgia is one of the film's main strengths, and who wouldn't be nostalgic for a time, before the scourge of AIDS, when a new liberation movement, inspired by the recent success of the civil rights movement, believed it could transform human society? Huge moustaches, tight T-shirts, bouffy hairstyles and unrenovated, brightly painted interiors help to evoke the carefree mood and out-there sexuality of the Castro, epicentre of the emerging gay identity in the 1970s -- an identity that, as the film shows so well, was becoming increasingly politicised.

Jones, a consultant on the film, has said that he and his friends knew they were doing something new, and the excitement, euphoria and sense of sexual freedom all shine through, despite the continuing discrimination. The scenes of spontaneous, angry nighttime demonstrations are enough to make any left-liberal heart swell.

Milk believed that there was huge power to be gained from all gays coming out both in the home and at work, refusing to cooperate in the culture of fear that kept them hidden (in one scene, in front of a crowd of supporters, he orders a friend to ring his father and come out to him). His life is a shining testament to this belief.

Verdict: Well worth seeing