Milk

It’s very difficult for an audience to accept a well known actor in a role. We all know someone is acting, but when you see George Clooney on the screen or Nicole Kidman, you often think of them before the character they portray. This is why I am amazed at Sean Penn’s performance in Milk. He completely disappears to make Harvey Milk into one of the most charismatic figures you have ever seen on a movie screen.

Set in 1978, and based on the true story, Penn stars as Harvey Milk – an activist in San Francisco who has decided to record the history of his life. He has been quite outspoken and controversial, so Milk worries he might be the target of a crazed person who will want to harm him. As he starts to tell his story, we flashback and see Milk’s emergence from the closet to become a leading businessman in San Francisco, his activism that captured the attention of the gay community and political leaders, and his campaign to become one of the first openly homosexual elected officials in the United States of America.

Director Gus Van Sant and Penn make Milk one of the most fascinating movies of the year, whether you know Milk’s history or not. Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black give us just the right mixture of Milk’s personal life as well as public life, and don’t pull any punches as they show his heroism, but also some of his warts as we see the man’s rough and tumble side, how he was tempted and seduced by power and his own ego.

In addition to the Oscar worthy performance by Penn, Milk showcases some of the best supporting performances of the year. Josh Brolin continues his amazing streak of memorable, fantastic performances as he plays Dan White – Milk’s political rival. While he is the villain in this story, Brolin brings some humanity to White as we see what can be interpreted as a betrayal by Harvey, and the slide White’s life and career take. You can’t excuse him, but Brolin makes him real.

While Emile Hirsch is an excellent actor and the one most would suspect to be the most prominent supporting actor, it’s Diego Luna, as Milk’s lover Jack, who steals the spotlight. Luna brings an amazing intensity to Jack’s highs and lows that captivates your attention whenever he is on the screen and gets the audience instantly interested in his plight.

In an even greater testament to Van Sant’s skill as a director, Milk, while more of a biography where we watch the big events in his life play out in chronological order, as opposed to a story about one moment in time, he gives the movie the feel of a dramatic tale. We see the storyline developing, learn about the villains, notice the foreshadowing of what is about to happen, and feel shock at the climax.

Milk is one of the best movies of the year, and one Penn will be remembered for throughout his career.

Milk is rated R for language, some sexual content and brief violence.