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Milk

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01:08

Milk

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• Drama
• Documentary

• 2008
• Gus Van Sant
• 122 mins
• 15

Summary

Oscar-winning biographical drama starring Sean Penn. In 1972, 40-year-old gay activist Harvey Milk leaves New York for San Francisco where he opens a camera shop in the city's Castro district. With prejudice against gay people ever present, Harvey realises that his establishment is a useful way to organise against it. However, before long, he decides that being elected to political office is the real way forward and he campaigns to get on to the city council.

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Review

A star rating of 5 out of 5.

Adam Smith

Sean Penn delivers an unexpected gem of a performance in Gus Van Sant's humane, intelligent biopic of Harvey Milk, who, in 1978, became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office. Milk remained in the closet until he was 40, before moving from New York to San Francisco with a younger boyfriend (James Franco), and discovering a passion for activism. Penn plays him as a warm, attractive character, and an astute politician with none of the tortured angst more typical of his previous roles. However, Milk's growing political success comes at the expense of his personal life and his relationships with his colleagues, particularly a tightly wound Josh Brolin. Van Sant, reminding us here that he is capable of conventional storytelling as well as such experimental fare as Elephant (2003), wonderfully re-creates the milieu of 1970s San Francisco and handles the material with great skill. And the opening black-and-white archive footage of men being rounded up by police for the crime of going to a gay bar is an unfortunate reminder of very recent history.

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7.5/10

How to watch

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Streaming

• Prime Video
• Sky Store

Credits

Cast

rolenameHarvey MilkSean PennCleve JonesEmile HirschDan WhiteJosh BrolinJack LiraDiego LunaScott SmithJames FrancoAnne KronenbergAlison PillMayor MosconeVictor GarberDanny NicolettaLucas GrabeelJim RivaldoBrandon BoyceMichael WongKelvin Yu

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Crew

rolenameDirectorGus Van Sant

Details

Theatrical distributor

Momentum

Released on

2009-01-23

Languages

English

Guidance

Swearing

Available on

DVD and Blu-ray

Formats

Black and white

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