THERE is a moment in Milk, Gus Van Sant’s passionate and timely biopic, when the title character spells it out.
Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in America, says of his 1970s political struggle that it wasn’t just about gay rights, but also about the rights of Asians, blacks, immigrants, workers and all of us.
“All men are created equal,” says Harvey. “No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words.”
Sean Penn’s heroic performance is the glue that holds the picture together.
But it’s the battle against the odds, the message of hope – the Obama factor, if you will – that gives Van Sant’s movie its surprisingly mainstream focus.
And, for anyone out there planning a midlife crisis in 2009, here’s a biopic that starts with the guy turning 40 and changing his own life – and, in his own way, changing the world.
Its faults are the faults of most biopics – characters come and go without impacting on the story, portrayed simply because they were there at the time and have to be included.
And there is a degree of empty exposition, banal dialogue filling in the blanks for those of us who don’t know the whole story, or any of it.
Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Elephant) employs a typically experimental mix of archive footage, different film stocks and camera techniques.
But much of Milk would be very straight ahead, conventional film-making if it weren’t for the subject’s inherent gender bending.
Diego Luna has the thankless role of the stay-at-home “wife", another staple of the biopic genre.
But the otherwise fine supporting cast includes stand-outs Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Josh Brolin.
It’s been a strong year or so for Brolin. With No Country For Old Men, Planet Terror, American Gangster, In The Valley Of Elah, Oliver Stone’s W and now Milk, his star is definitely on the rise.
But it’s Penn’s picture, and it comes to life when Harvey is at the microphone, rallying the troops with a rabble-rousing speech to turn one more lost cause into an unlikely but ultimately irresistible victory.
MILK opens in Aberdeen on January 23.