The movie chronicles Milk's rise to elected office. His story picks up upon his arrival in San Francisco in the early 1970s. He becomes the unofficial mayor of the burgeoning gay community, and repeatedly runs for city supervisor, gaining more votes with each run. The end of At Large voting, plus a crucial addition to his staff, lesbian Anne Kronenberg (Alison Pill), enable Milk's election to city supervisor in 1977. Another important ally is Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), whom Milk successfully recruits as an activist.
Milk's devotion to the cause of gay rights is less popular with his lovers. Scott (James Franco) eventually walks out on Milk, and is succeeded by Jack (Diego Luna), a space cadet whose odd behavior causes problems for Milk.
The latter's public office tenure is dominated by a battle against Proposition 6, a state initiative that would ban homosexuals from teaching positions. Milk debates homophobic state senator Briggs (Denis O'Hare) to draw attention to the cause.
But Milk makes a political enemy of fellow supervisor Dan White, a former policeman and firefighter whose resume is beloved by his conservative district. But White is a malcontent, and blames Moscone and Milk for the effective end of his political career. He manages to gun them both down. This unhappy event is followed by a mass candlelight procession in the memory of martyr Milk.
How others will see it. Milk is politically correct, which helped it accumulate eight Academy Award nominations. Penn was a virtual lock as Best Actor, following the path of Tom Hanks, who played a gay with AIDS in Philadelphia. While Hanks' performance was similar to that of a nice straight man, Penn takes a mildly effeminate (and thus more risky) tack. He also kisses Scott or Jack on several occasions, but you can bet that Penn's eyes were on the prize: his second Best Actor statuette.
The imdb.com user ratings are generally very high. Young adult females give the film the highest score, perhaps because they are less likely to judge Milk's lifestyle. The film is well paced and compelling. It has problems of premonition (more on this later) that will be ignored, if noticed at all, by most viewers.
How I felt about it. Harvey Milk is famous today, not because he was the first openly gay man elected to U.S. public office, but because he was a martyr for his cause. Even though Milk may have been shot as an afterthought, once Moscone had been dispatched, and even though White shot Milk not because he was gay, but because he had voted and conspired against him.
Those knowledgeable about Milk, but who have not seen the film, are aware that he was murdered by Dan White, and perhaps know that Milk's lover, Jack, committed suicide. Director Van Sant litters the screenplay with red flags of impending doom for Harvey Milk and Jack.
The if-I-die tape recordings allow Milk to narrate his own life story, and demonstrate his courage and willingness to die for the cause of gay rights. But they are also symptoms of his growing self-importance, which is noted by Moscone in his final comments to Milk.
It was inevitable that San Francisco's large gay community would develop political power sufficient to elect openly homosexual candidates. It was not inevitable that Milk would be murdered, particularly by a fellow city supervisor. The tragedy of this event is magnified by the strange sentence of manslaughter that White receives, and he spends only five years in prison. One wonders what sentence a gay man would have received for shooting in cold blood the mayor and a city supervisor. The disparity demonstrates just how far gays had, and still have, to go to gain full acceptance in society.