Sean Penn is Whole ‘Milk’
Over his 27-year film career thus far, Sean Penn has accumulated four Oscar nominations and one win, four Golden Globe nominations and four Independent Spirit Award nominations — one of which is for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in the recently released film Milk. Even though the film includes an impressive supporting cast, Penn is a scene stealer — which is quite a feat when you’re in every scene of a two-hour movie. Oscar nominations for the 81st annual Academy Awards will not be released until January, but if Penn is overlooked for his role in the film, it will be a great shame.
Milk is a biopic about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public official to make office in 1978. For those of you who were not yet conceived or still wetting the bed or too self-absorbed as a hormone-raging teenager in the 1970s, you may not know much about Harvey aside from his assassination.
Openly gay director and screenwriter, Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black, respectively, offer a genuine perspective of who Harvey was as a politician, but even more so as a gay man. Harvey had an anti-corrosive self-esteem, a charismatic smile and demeanor, and a dry wit that packed a punch. These qualities are expertly drawn out by Van Sant, Black and Penn, which keeps the tone of the movie on the lighter side, considering its subject matter.
The film recounts Harvey’s life and career — using some flashbacks and flashforwards — from 1970 to his untimely death in 1978, at the age of 48. After a brief encounter in a New York subway station, Harvey and Scott Smith (the smoldering and sexy James Franco) slip into a relationship that summons them to San Francisco to start a new life together. Once there and nearly out of marijuana money they open a camera shop in the Castro district, then quickly learn that the neighborhood isn’t as gay-friendly as they thought.
The film quickly moves through Harvey’s decision to run for a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors and through his first couple of failed elections, but it does so without losing any depth to the film. The sequence also introduces Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), a street kid who eventually becomes Harvey’s protege as a gay activist.
After Scott leaves Harvey in 1975, Harvey starts a relationship with Jack Lira (Diego Luna), an unstable young man with an abundance of insecurities. He also hires a new campaign manager, Anne Kronenberg (Alison Pill), who becomes his stepping stone to finally being elected into office.
With anti-gay housing and employment legislation running rampant across the nation including California’s own Proposition 6, an initiative to allow school boards to fire all known gay teachers and school workers, Harvey’s struggle for gay rights within his own district becomes more difficult. He seeks out the support of fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin), the film’s hot-tempered protagonist with an apparent junk food addiction. After a falling out between them, and after Dan resigns from the Board, he spirals into an unthinkable act.
Van Sant uses authentic footage of police raids, pride parades and television clips to pull the audience into the gay community’s turbulent ’70s. But the protest/rally scenes shot on-location ignite the strongest of emotions. Shot upclose and with what literally seemed to be thousands of extras, the audience may very well feel they are physically rallying on the streets with them.
Will Milk be a box-office hit? With the frightening similarities to current-day gay-rights obstacles, and with it’s unobtrusive matter-of-fact delivery of a historic civil rights movement, it will be nothing less than a sharp wake-up call.
Milk is now playing at Broadway Centre Cinemas, 111 E. Broadway. The film contains brief nudity and a lot of man-on-man kissing … that’s freakin’ hot!