I always meant to see this movie, but then never did because I was afraid it would be too sad. So we put it on the Netflix queue somewhere, and lo and behold it showed up in the mailbox one day. Then it sat on top of our DVD player for the next two months. (Granted, it was high wedding season at the time so there wasn't a lot of movie watching going on, period. But still.) Finally we watched it the other night because the new season of Dexter is finally on Netflix so we had to send the old DVD back.
Well, I'm glad we watched it. It's a very well-made movie, visually pleasing and with great acting. Sean Penn was phenomenal as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay official elected to public office--he completely brought the character to life for me, from the accent to the mannerisms to the individual dynamic he created with each character. I guess that's why he won the Best Actor Oscar for it. I also really felt like I learned a lot about a story I knew next to nothing about before seeing the movie. It was a fascinating look (although I can't attest to how accurate) at the rise of political activism in the gay community in San Francisco while also being a compelling character narrative about Harvey.Yeah, it was sad, but it was also uplifting to see the progress that Harvey and his colleagues made for the gay rights movement. The film did not shy away from the characters' gay lifestyles (appropriately), and I thought it treated every character with great respect. I don't really have any drawbacks to this movie, except that it's a little bit emotionally draining, like many great films, I suppose. So check it out if you didn't see it when it made a splash 3 years ago. And don't ignore it on your Netflix queue.
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