Milk

Year: 2008

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Van Sant

Review

at its core it’s a film about human rights and a grassroots political movement; that’s the interesting part. all the personal stuff with milk’s various lovers and white’s possible closeted homosexuality are fairly uninteresting. penn was better than expected and brolin was decent, most of the other performances were fine enough. van sant over-directed it at times for my tastes, but it’s a solidly written story by dustin lance black (former mormon who wrote some episodes of big love). disappointed by exclusion of homosexual women in the film and, apparently, in the movement at the time. also didn’t know some of the specifics of milk’s rise to power – his selling out vis a vis his image, the re-writing of the districts which allowed him to finally win an election, etc. the film also painted dan white in a more sympathic light than the documentary did. showed him as a more reasonable person who grew angry with milk’s rise to power. the implication here is that white was a closeted homosexual who felt castrated by the mayor and flamboyant homosexual in harvey milk. in the end he kills himself after a short stint in jail. a tragic story all around.

Watched in theater