M ilk rests so exclusively - and solidly - on its performances, especially Sean Penn's marvelous characterization of Harvey Milk, that audiences won't realize how strong its mojo is until an assassin's bullets break the spell. It's not a great movie, but it is an enlivening and unusual one: an effervescent political film that also packs a knockout punch.
As Milk, Penn provides the most embracing, democratic portrait of an American figure since Henry Fonda's young Abe Lincoln - and Fonda was playing Lincoln in his lawyer days. One is tempted to call this portrait celebratory, but everything Penn does is too complicated for that and thus elating in a different, deeper way.
As Milk struggles to become the first openly gay man elected to high public office in a major U.S. city, the joy belongs to moviegoers. He may become an inspiration, but we get to see him sweat, then triumph, as he uses every means of persuasion to confront the volatility of threatened straights and the reticence of closeted gays.
The director, Gus Van Sant, has said he just wanted to let Penn rip. (Van Sant's staging is generally so limp here, I can believe it.) Penn, of course, does more. As Milk, who rose to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and became potential mayoral material, Penn breathes the character in thoroughly and breathes him out unself-consciously and passionately. His body language and facial expressions reflect an astonishing alteration in spirit, whether he's raising a fist in triumph at a parade or toppling into romance head-first at a subway stop with the pickup who turns into his most profound lover, Scott Smith (James Franco).
What's just as important as his gestures and movements are the sparkle in his eye, the laugh lines in his face and, when you can hear him above the fray or in the quiet of a lonely corridor or a private home, the resilience and humor in his voice. (In Penn's and Franco's characterizations, Milk and the affectionate, devoted Smith harmonize beautifully until politics tears them apart.) Penn the off-screen personality becomes deliberate and somber when he talks about politics on The Charlie Rose Show. As Milk, he creates a character whose passion is extroverted and infectious: Even his guile conveys a sense of play.
