MILK (2008) B-

Without Sean Penn this movie would have been a dud.

There's a documentary out there* about Harvey Milk. I understand it did a better job of describing his work in advancing gay rights than this movie.

In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. The film describes his work to organize gay people and give them the courage to "come-out-of-the-closet", organize and become politically active.

I assume that the producers believed that to be realistic and honest, the movie had to present active gay young men of the 1970's as childish and adolescent . . . acting out their emotional (and particularly sexual feelings) in ways to offend mainstream culture. ( I never fully understood the actions of the marchers during the "Gay Pride" parades. Their actions seemed counterproductive to their cause.)

The movie also presents the personal and intimate side of Milk that shows him (warts and all) as terribly needy with his last partner. This is where Penn's acting is superb. But I also asked myself if this level of detail was necessary in advancing the responsible gay agenda.

Was the movie about advancing gay and human rights or was it about certain personal weaknesses of the gay community? The latter subject was developed but never resolved in the movie.


*The Times of Harvey Milk(1984) UR

Harvey Fierstein narrates this documentary by Rob Epstein about San Francisco's most colorful -- and unfortunately, tragic -- political figure: Harvey Milk. A staunch fighter for gay rights, Milk helped forge a presence for the city's gay community in city hall, becoming the first openly gay member of San Francisco's combative city council. But his life, along with Mayor George Moscone's, was cut short by infamous fellow politico Dan White.