Milk (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Gus Van Sant

Writer: Dustin Lance Black

Cinematographer: Harris Savides

Composer: Danny Elfman

Cast: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, James Franco, Alison Pill

Despite Elfman’s occasionally gooily swooning score and the unavoidable genre frailties inherent to the biopic (how many interesting charcters are introduced only to be barely seen again?), Van Sant’s portrait of the (political) life and (physical) death of gay activist Harvey Milk, is, thanks mainly to some fine performances, a thoroughly engrossing and informative yet human work. Iain.Stott