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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 22 January 2009

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk

Director fails to Milk the drama

MILK
Directed by Gus Van Sant

THIS is a worthy film.
This is a well-produced film. This is an important film.
Yet praise for the story of the life and death of human rights campaigner Harvey Milk has to have a proviso: director Gus Van Sant uses a narrative trick that telegraphs the ending in the opening scene, and works as a dead weight on any dramatic finale.
Perhaps this is because Stateside the legend of Milk is well known, and the ending is a historical fact.
A gay man, he campaigned in the 1970s for civil rights, and helped turn the Castro corner of San Francisco into a gay community that was a bedrock against bigotry.
Elected as a city supervisor, he was shot dead at the San Fran town hall – along with the mayor – by a fellow supervisor, Dan White.
He and White had been uneasy political bedfellows at times and White harboured a grudge against Milk for failing to support a policy regarding psychiatric day centres.
All this comes out
in the film and the intricacies of the civic politics are well done – it could be dry and boring but instead reveals democracy working at a grass roots level.
Harvey’s loves are chronicled – how he split up with his boyfriend Scotty, who felt he had taken a back seat to his political objectives, and then his tragic relationship with another who eventually hanged himself.
Rather than detract from his fight for freedom, they show the sacrifices Harvey made as he tried to put gay civil rights on the agenda and face down the strong, dark, evil conservative forces that told him his sexuality was an abomination and he would face the wrath of God.
Sean Penn’s performance as Milk is splendid. He brings Harvey alive and sheds light on the motivations behind dedicating his life to public service.
Yet the trick of having him speaking into a tape recorder as he narrates the story and foresees his own death robs the viewer of a sense of drama.
Above all, Harvey’s story is a lesson to us all about acceptance. And in America, where there has been a backlash against the rights of gay people – with plans to annul gay marriages in California – it’s a vitally important film to have in cinemas today.
Despite minor quibbles, the film is worth seeing for that alone.

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