Review: Milk

****½ / *****

"My name is Harvey Milk, and I am here to recruit you!"

A gentle, almost tender biopic of a man who spearheaded a revolution, Gus Van Sant's Milk is appropriately itself a dichotomy. It's an almost aggressively conventional film about a premise that could not be more foreign to mainstream cinema: the fight for gay civil rights.

With clean, economic storytelling, an efficient script and wonderfully grounded performances from its impressive cast, the film on the surface might not feel like anything special. Like dozens of awards-season projects before it, Milk is a competently-made bio of an extraordinary individual that pulls all the right heartstrings and hits all the right notes. It's not until you take a step back from the film that it hits you: This is the gayest major motion picture ever made.

From its sobering opening montage (news footage of gay bars being raided in the 1960s) to the humbling final moments when thousands march in the deceased Harvey's honour through San Francisco, Milk is an unapologetic, beautiful and affecting testament to the strength, warmth and complexity of gay men and women at a landmark time in not only gay, but human rights history.

The screen is rarely without a gay character. We see gay men cooking, lounging in bed, working, dancing, loving, squabbling, joking, driving one another nuts and supporting each other in the wake of tragedy. Though the conversations are overwhelmingly about discrimination against gays, there are numerous tender moments when we see these men not marching in the streets or shouting through bullhorns, but simply living their lives.

The anticipation leading up to the highly-buzzed film has mostly been about the fact that the story of Harvey Milk, a gay rights leader who was assassinated along with Mayor Geroge Moscone by a fellow city supervisor, was actually - impossibly - making it to the screen after nearly 40 years. But its real accomplishment is something different, and to me, unexpected: it gently but without hesitation takes the audience into the world of gay men in a way that no film ever has before.

Equal parts sweetness, melancholy and rage, it's a wonderfully immersive, warts-and-all journey. Harvey and his friends aren't perfect, but they're not out to hurt anyone. They just want what's fair. And it would be near impossible to walk out of this film without understanding that. The approach works thanks mostly to the once-in-a-lifetime performance of Sean Penn as Milk, a brassy New York Jew with an infectious grin and a rascally but harmless sense of humour. Penn's Milk is aggressively flirtatious, obnoxious, stubborn and shameless... which, by many accounts, is probably historically accurate.

He's also gentle, caring, intelligent and braver than you could imagine. He says "Here I am, and what of it?" There's never a moment of hesitation, not a second that you don't believe that he is doing what he truly believes to be right, and not a moment when Penn feels counterfeit or uncommitted to the role. This isn't about a gay man struggling to come to terms with himself, it's about a gay man struggling to get the world to come to terms with him. And for that fact alone, this film is like no other that has come before it.

Surrounding and aiding Harvey in his fight are dozens of other men, nearly all of them gay. As Milk's longtime lover Scott Smith, James Franco offers an openness and emotional honestly that we've never seen from the actor before, which is essential as Smith is the real heart of the film. He's the man who ignites the spark of hope in Harvey, and he's clearly his lifetime love, even though they were separated when Harvey was killed. And ff Scott Smith is the heart, Emile Hirsch's Cleve Jones is the film's hot blood, and we see his evolution from a sassy part-time rentboy to one of the most vigilant gay rights warriors in history. A bold contrast to Smith's gentility, Hirsch's Jones is a flame that just needs fanning, and soon after he and Harvey meet he's a full-on activist wildfire.

As Milk's colleague and eventual murderer Dan White, Josh Brolin is also excellent, deftly walking the line between curiosity and abject disgust in his dealings with Milk, who is the only other supervisor who will give him the time of day despite the fact that White openly dislikes gay men. Although Milk mentions at one point that he thinks that White might himself be gay and deeply closeted, the film thankfully doesn't run with the idea, leaving White's actions somewhat of a mystery, which is indeed what they remain to this day.

The focus of the film is instead on Harvey's political career, and the issues that formed the basis of his campaign. In recapturing the era, Van Sant makes clever use of ample historical footage of both the Castro neighborhood that Milk called home (which is at times blended in so seamlessly with the modern-day recreations that it's impossible to tell the difference) and news footage of many of Milk's political foes, most notably Anita Bryant, whose conservative Christian movement pushed to get Proposition 6 (a ballot measure that sought to remove all openly gay teachers - and their supporters - from California public schools) passed in California after first finding success in Florida.

Milk packs a lot of stuff into its 2-hour running time, covering Harvey's move to California from New York and his romances with both Smith and Jack Lira (Diego Luna), his numerous runs for office, his political battles, his cautious friendship with White, his eventual murder and, finally, his legacy. But thanks to the warm performances from the central cast, the film doesn't suffer from its brisk pace, although some viewers might leave the theatre wanting to know more about Milk himself (we learn virtually nothing about the man pre-California). That, for me, is what's more important about biopics: it's not just what we see about the man/woman in the film, it's what it makes us wish to learn.

It's also worth noting that there are virtually no women present in this story. Aside from Anne Kronenberg, a lesbian largely responsible for Harvey's eventual campaign success, the Castro is curiously devoid of women. While there may have been segregation in causes at the time and while Milk's close circle may well indeed have been mostly male, it does seem strange that there is so little visibility for women (particularly lesbian women) in the film. Van Sant clearly wants to immerse the audience in a community of not just gay citizens in general, but of gay men in particular, with all their particular shortcomings and virtues.

As a straight man, but a human being to whom tolerance, humanity and respect are untouchably important, not recommending Milk isn't really even up for discussion. The fact that a renowned filmmaker and cast have managed to bring the story of a gay civil rights hero to screen is staggering to begin with, but the fact that the film that they have created is so solidly rendered, so heartfelt and so accessible is more than a relief, it's a godsend. There's a gay film about gay causes that shows the strength and resilience of the gay community without apologies, and a film like that has to be recommended without reservation.

Will the film change minds? Maybe not. Anyone rabidly anti-gay won't be seeing it to begin with. But what Milk might do is reenforce in the minds of those who are merely "tolerant" of gays or who don't fully appreciate the scope of the gay civil rights struggle that these are human issues, based around real people. Gay physical affection is presented as a matter of fact (there are love scenes and kisses abound), as is the hatred and bigotry directed at Harvey and his community. Some will be moved to tears by Harvey's story, others will be educated, and still others will leave the theatre furious at what is still happening in the world today. I entered the film prepared to be disappointed; thankfully, I wasn't. But I was also prepared to be detached from a time and a struggle that I'm relatively unfamiliar with.

However, within seconds of the film's opening there was one particular image that grabbed me by the throat and will probably stay with me for the rest of my life: During the title montage made up of news footage of gay bar raids, a group of men sit quietly with drinks at cafe tables surrounded by the harsh lights of camera crews, each with his face buried in his arms trying to hide from the cameras. Two hours later the film closes on the image of Harvey's community marching with candles through the streets of San Francisco, thousands strong. If Harvey's short legacy can teach us anything, it's that we - gay, non-gay, whatever - cannot live in fear and that we have nothing to hide our faces from. And if that is Harvey Milk's lasting message, it's one that is excellently realized, and long overdue.

"All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words."