Milk

Milk

So there's been a lot of buzz around biopic Milk recently, not least of all because the events relayed in the film parallels the events occurring in California just a few weeks before this movie's release. But unlike recent events, where California voters passed an amendment to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, the starring proposition of Milk was roundly defeated. The uplifting spirit of this movie should have been moving, but somehow wasn't.

I can't say that Sean Penn didn't do a great job in the title role, as the first openly gay man elected to US public office. In fact, he was quite fantastic. The story itself is a sweet tale of the underdog overcoming great odds to accomplish something that improved the lives of the persecuted minority. It seemed like all the pieces should be there to make this film great, but maybe I just expected a little bit more, and I left mildly disappointed.

My biggest complaint is that while watching the film, I felt incredibly removed from the characters and the story. In fact, when Harvey Milk is assassinated at the end, I really felt no shock, no sorrow, no... anything. That really shouldn't happen. Ok, so perhaps director Gus Van Sant purposely wanted to end on a happy and hopeful note, so he necessarily needed to make his protagonist's death less traumatic for the audience, but I still don't feel like that's natural. The audience should have been bonding with these characters for 120 minutes, and should feel something. And I can't really blame Sean Penn either, as I couldn't feel anything towards any of the other characters either, save perhaps for James Franco's Scott Smith character. But, I have to admit, James Franco makes a very charming gay man. Rather adorable, actually. :)