Milk: Do See It If You Haven't Already

So as promised, I did indeed see Milk over the weekend and my final conclusion is that I would recommend it. Sean Penn does an amazing job as Harvey Milk, capturing all his joy, despair and drive for change. Emile Hirsch is also very good as Cleve Jones and has many funny lines (and dance moves). James Franco also does a good job as Milk's lover Scott Smith although his part is mostly restricted to the first part of the film (he does get one very heartbreaking phone call with Milk near the end). Josh Brolin is as always well nuanced in the role of Dan White (was he in hibernation until 2007?) and the rest of the cast also turns in fine work. The movie does an excellent job of telling Milk's San Francisco story and gets in all the political, historical highlights as well as enough personal details to really shine light on the man. I also thought the movie made excellent use of archival footage to make the reality of the story vividly clear (it should be noted for the record that my sister disagrees on this point but I think my friend Patrick, who was at one of the parades shown in news footage, appreciated its inclusion).

There's only one small problem from my point of view - based on a combination of the trailer, what I had read about the film and what I learned at the Times Talk I attended (mostly from the talk), I knew every little thing that was going to happen in the movie. I can't think of one anecdote or historical detail that I hadn't heard about it in advance. Even the movie's tragic climax scene had been discussed at the talk - I won't ruin it but the screenwriter claims the dramatic way in which it concludes was most probably true. So when my sister and I saw the film, it was like watching something we knew we had seen before. My sister was horribly disappointed by this and I think left with a sour feeling as a result (you can correct me if I'm wrong Mer). I certainly felt as if I missed out on the excitement of discovering a film for the first time but I was still moved to tears in many places. However, our experience was particularly unique (unless you were at the Times Talk too) so I have tried to look past that in reaching my above conclusion.

There is no doubt that Milk is a very timely film as there are obvious similarities behind the recent Proposition 8 vote and the drive behind 1978's Proposition 6 featured in the film. In one scene, the owner of the Advocate magazine lays out his strategy for defeating Prop 6 and it sounds exactly like the strategy used against Prop 8. Only Milk was there to explain why that strategy wouldn't work and indeed, it didn't work for this year's Prop 8 battle. I hope that this film will be seen by those unfamiliar with Milk and his story (see it because it might be nominated for Oscars, because you love Sean Penn, who cares, just see it) and will open at least a few eyes - any support is welcome as the fight continues.