The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Los Angeles

'Milk' is the first great film to look at civil rights from the perspective of the gay movement.

The subject, of course, is the late, charismatic San Francisco gay activist and politician of the 1970s, Harvey Milk, played with extraordinary depth and wisdom by Sean Penn. 'Milk' resists bumper-sticker identifications: Yes, it's a biopic, a love story, a civil rights movie and sharp political and social commentary. But it transcends any single genre as a very human document that touches first and foremost on the need to give people hope. The audience for this film is all over the map but probably modest -- the gay and lesbian community, for sure, and anyone with politics on the brain. And anyone who cares about acting too, not just for Penn but persuasive performances from a large and talented cast. The Focus Features release opens November 26. The film is superbly crafted, covering huge amounts of time, people and the zeitgeist without a moment of lapsed energy or inattention to detail. Even the opening moments - black-and-white archival footage of cops rousting men covering their faces from gay bars of the '50s and '60s, the kind of harassment that led to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York -- offer a poignant reminder of what was not that long ago. The narrative device is a tape recording Milk makes in his final and 48th year to be played in the event of his death. (He received many death threats.) Here he tells the story of his eight years in San Francisco, how he moved there with his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco), founded a camera shop that became a centre for the gay community and took up activism to become the 'Mayor of Castro Street.'