Last night Owen and I, after having some yummy cocktails to celebrate Stephen's near-birthday, finally got to see Sean Penn's Academy Award-winning performance as Harvey MILK. I did enjoy it but found the tone of Gus Van Sant's film a bit too reverential.

We meet Harvey in New York, a closeted gay man who reaches 40 with the realisation he had done nothing important with his life so moves to San Francisco and soon finds himself involved in the local politics of his Castro area. After three failed attempts he finally is voted onto the city's Board of Supervisors in 1977, the first 'out' politician to be voted to public office. He was in office only 11 months before he and Mayor George Moscone were shot dead in City Hall by Dan White, a Supervisor who had recently resigned and not been reinstated when he changed his mind.

Van Sant excels in recreating the atmosphere of the late 1970s through excellent art direction and a seamless use of contemporary news footage although several times the stylised photography which strives to give certain scenes the dull brown-ish tint of old snapshots is a bit annoying. What is shocking is the archive footage and recreated press conference scenes of the right-wing Anita Bryant and John Briggs - their hatred and sanctimonious outpourings would be laughable but for the fact that they are still being propagated today.Van Sant certainly directs the film with the respect that Milk deserves but... he couldn't have been adorable all the time surely! There is one scene where Milk gives a veiled threat to Mayor Moscone to use his voters against him should he reinstate Dan White which finally gives the character some shade but surely more instances could have given to provide a warts-and-all view rather than the overall saintly figure suggested.
Van Sant has surrounded Penn with an effective supporting cast. Two lovers are singled out in the screenplay: James Franco is fine as Scott Smith who moved to San Francisco with Milk but who eventually felt frozen out by his lover's political ambitions while Diego Luna plays Milk's last lover, the tragically unstable Jack Lira, and he negotiates the character's unlikeable traits well. Emile Hirsch has great fun with the role of Cleve Jones, the street hustler who Milk recruits to be one of his most trusted supporters and Alison Pill is also effective as Anne Kronenberg. the young lesbian who Milk hires to run his successful campaign. Denis O'Hare is eminently punchable as John Briggs and it was nice to see Victor Garber as George Moscone, the Mayor who shared Harvey's fate.The most difficult role in this film is surely that of Milk's nemesis Dan White and Josh Brolin delivers a performance of brooding intensity. it would be easy in a film like this to portray him as an out-and-out villain but Brolin portrays a character who is psychologically flawed and his relationship with Milk is here shown as one of two men who fatally could not share a common ground. There is a painful scene at Milk's birthday party where a drunken White confronts his rival but they might as well be speaking a foreign language to each other. The film starts with Diane Feinstein's announcement of the shooting of Milk and Moscone but still the final moments of the film are hard to watch as White exacts his revenge at being slighted.
Ultimately the film belongs heart and soul to Sean Penn - and who would have thought he could be so winning?

He turns in a performance that makes you smile and brings a tear to your eye. Funny, rueful, loving, inspiring and tragic - he makes you believe the appeal of the man and one wonders who else could have played the role and given themselves over to it so completely.

As the film ends a series of captions tell us how Milk's supporters went on to continue their activism into the AIDS era and the shameful surroundings of White's trial when he was found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder and served five years imprisonment. Two years after his release he killed himself.

How successful ultimately was Harvey Milk's career? No one came forward in his wake as his natural successor and his wish for high-profiled gay figures in all areas of public life is still a pipedream.