It certainly is not conventional on any level. It may not be experimental, but its ability to feel both contemporary [we weren't watching the past] yet assert Milk's historical significance was an accomplished feat.

And that's Van Sant for you. My issues were more with the screenplay, which had a few scenes were the dialogue was purely exposition.

Well, at least one BP nominee deserves its spot.

This is really good; all you folks complaining that it's a bland, conventional, and by-the-numbers biopic are totally wrong. It's extremely well-crafted. From the brilliant inclusion of archival footage to the verite-esque cinematography at times, it's a feature film entirely owing to the tradition of documentary. It borrows from, steals from, and pays homage to the form; in fact, I'm sure there's a case to be made that this is a documentary, since it's telling a true story. At the very least, there's an obvious and important influence of the traits of non-fiction filmmaking.

This is only aided by the true-to-life performances, especially a refreshingly subtle Sean Penn and a terrifically heartbreaking James Franco. I, too, wonder why Brolin is getting all the accolades; he's good, but Franco is clearly the better supporting actor. Brolin also suffers from his character being horribly underdeveloped, my only real problem with the film. Either you show White's downward spiral or you don't, you don't half-heartedly suggest reasons and excuses without giving them leverage. Still, it's one complaint amongst many compliments.

It's also fantastically edited (a trademark of any great documentary), wonderfully shot, and superbly entertaining. A real winner.

I still haven't seen Milk, because it never really expanded here once it left the enzian, but I wanna read the case for it as a documentary. A professor once tried to make a similar case for Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach and, I think, failed pretty significantly. You should write it, trixs.

Great review, trixster!

One small clarification...



There is a coined word to describe just this type of phenomena: docudrama.

Fabulous! Sean Penn gives the performance of a lifetime, it's inspiring and uplifting, emotional, technically brilliant (fantastic incorporation of real life footage) and well acted by everyone else (no idea how this didn't win the SAG Ensemble...Slumdog seriously???).

A/A+ (#4 of 2008)

Milk is far from revolutionary filmmaking, but it's one of the most compelling biopics I've seen in the past few years (and the better of the two '70s political flicks up for Best Picture). Sean Penn is flat-out excellent as Harvey Milk. I have never seen him give such a charismatic performance. It was enough to make me forget that this is an actor who typically does dark and moody work. Penn's performance easily stands tallest in the ensemble cast, though the rest of the ensemble is very solid as well. Josh Brolin, giving the other Oscar-nominated performance in this movie as Milk's assassin Dan White, does good work in not taking the portrayal to the realm of caricature. Gus Van Sant delivers a mostly straightforward directing approach, but any lack of risks is overcome by the passion that evidently went into underlining the importance of Milk and his work. Though the film will undoubtedly carry more power with homosexual viewers, its message of hope is potent enough to ring true with heterosexual viewers as well (as it did with me). The timeliness also can't be denied, since it's tough to watch the movie and not think about recent political events, like Prop 8 or the presence of a politician giving hope to his people. One of the best movies that 2008 had to offer.

A-

I couldn't agree more. And, while I can't help but be swept up in the fact that I'm very much grounded in the film's politics and setting - today, now, the gay movement is arguably hitting its stride, I think there's an excellent case to be made that this is much more than a pedestrian biopic. It's as close to documentary as possible, just as affecting and genuine and not pretentious in the slightest.

In that last sense, it's remarkable Van Sant went from Paranoid Park to Milk in the same year.

Following Waltz with Bashir, it's probably the best film I've seen from '08 - at least thus far.

Very well-made film, but it hasn't been sticking with me too much, and nothing really stuck out for me except Penn's performance (and I still think Rourke's was better).

B+/A- for now.

B+


I have never been a fan of Gus Van Vant, not at all. I don't like his Psycho remake, I hate Good WIll Hunting (one of the worst BP nominees ever). Paranoid Park was fairly interesting, but lacking in parts. Therefore, I can easily say that Milk is the best Van Sant film I have seen to date.

Someone mentioned the word "inspiring" in the context of this film and I suppose that fits it best. It is a straight-forward biopic (though not tracing Harvey Milk's entire life, but just a certain period of it). Van Sant really plays by the rules here and thus cannot avoid the typical dull moments that are inherent to most biopics. However, unlike many of them, the movie is filled with some great energy that it unleashes quite often (especially during the marches and Milk's speeches). It feels alive and it lives the era it is set in. The costume design, the set and the score are all perfectly aligned to convey just the feeling and the atmosphere of the times in which the film is set.

While Van Sant does a competent job directing the film, it is Sean Penn's movie from start to finish. Not to diminish the work of the cast. It does have one of the best ensembles in its year, better than the SAG-awarded ensemble of Slumdog Millionaire, for instance. Josh Brolin plays a complex character rather well, never making him come across anything other than human, despite all his actions. But among the supporting players it is James Franco that steals the show. I wasn't too fond of Diego Luna's unstable lover, though. That said, Sean Penn's presence ruled over the entire film. It wasn't the best male leading performance in 2009 (that honor clearly goes to Rourke in The Wrestler), but I am not too bitter about Penn winning the Oscar. He's a good actor and that was his best performance, easily trumping his turn in Mystic River. He became Harvey Milk and like with all great performances, it is very fast that it becomes difficult to separate between Penn the Actor and Penn as Milk.

It is an important film, an interesting film and a well-done film. It is not perfect and while it avoids sentimentality (good!), I think it could have used some more intimate/emotional scenes. Still, it is a fine work and a worthy nominee.

After having seen The Life and Times or Harvey Milk, the documentary that won the Oscar when it was released in the 80s this film is almost a theatrical remake of that doc so it's lost luster for me now. It's still a solid film, but the Documentary is leagues better.

B+

Milk

Just finished watching this. It's one-sided, arrogant, pretentious, discriminatory, and proudly subjective. For a biopic, one would have thought that it have shown at least some objectivity. However, the structure in which this story was told was good, it used years to track the progress of the gay rights movement out of San Francisco yet still flipping back and forth to Milk in 1978 whilse recording his events.

The characters in the film use their sexuality to define them when that's the one thing that they are campaigning against others doing - so they're hypocrites, and not actually helping the problem. They're creating an even bigger problem and allowing an "us and them" culture to grow further. The film shows gays to be sexually promiscuous and more openly antagonistic than heterosexuals, so they've only got themselves to blame for the riots and mass beatings. They're not even welcoming of other minorities; when the lesbian comes into their group, they're ridiculing her and not welcoming at all.

Penn gives, umm, a gay performance (but still lacking as an actor). The rest are forgettable. Milk is simply propaganda intent on portraying a sob story. Compare that to another gay film;Brokeback Mountain, that is a delicately crafted emotional drama about love, with the sexuality of the main characters not being used as an excuse for the films' existence - it would work just as well if they were both straight. Milk is incredibly biased, showing that if you are gay then you are heroic and reasonable, but if you are opposed to the gay lifestyle (because many people think of it as immoral, and they are allowed to think that), then Van Sant shows you as an unreasonable zealot with blood on your hands. Not surprising since Van Sant (the director) is also a raging homosexual. If I want to listen to a preacher, I'll become religious. I wanted to watch a fair and balanced biopic, and all I got was lecture upon lecture of how nobel and innocent gay men are and how opposing straight people are.

D

I believe this film is far more complex than you indicate. Via James Franco's reasonable and restrained character, for example, the film questions Harvey's belief closeted gay people should be revealed for the benefit of the cause. And I would argue the portrayal of Dan White is sympathetic; Van Sant and Brolin could have flat out vilified this man who murdered two people in cold blood and received a light sentence because he ate too many sweets, but the film instead tries to engage with him and understand why he spiraled out of control under enormous personal and political pressure.

Your review also seems built upon a flawed foundation: does every film have to be fair and balanced to the max and cater to every viewpoint? Is it wrong for a film to sympathize more with one side of a conflict? Milk is a film by a gay director and a gay screenwriter, and it pays tribute to a gay icon and shows the terror the religious right creates in the gay community, inspiring them to come together and forge their own version of community and family. It does not need to show how the other side feels. They can produce their own movie (Moral Courage Under Homo Fire: The Anita Bryant Story!) if they so desire.

But I don't have to like it.

No, I'm just saying the claim biopic = objectivity is very flawed. Born on the Fourth of July doesn't need to comfort people who were staunchly pro-Nixon and pro-war. Milk doesn't need to humanize Anitra Bryant because she certainly didn't seem human or humane to scared gay people watching her spread hate on television.

I don't mind biopics being biased if I agree with that bias. With Milk, I didn't agree with that bias, and that's no different than any other viewer does in any other film - if someone likes Tarantino movies, most likely they will love Django Unchained.