Milk (15)

THERE has long been talk of making a film about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in San Francisco. Robin Williams was attached at one time. Now Sean Penn takes to the podium in a winning performance that could strike Oscar gold for him. I’m no great fan of the ohso- serious Penn, but he’s brilliant here in a movie that steers a difficult course between biopic and gay pride manifesto.

It helps that Milk’s is a terrific story, even if the ending is tragic – he was gunned down by a fellow public administrator (played by Josh Brolin, last seen at George Bush in Oliver Stone’s W).

In 1970s San Francisco, Milk opens a photographic shop in Castro Street and determines to make the area gay-friendly, even though the very idea of an openly gay man in public office is unthinkable.

Director Gus Van Sant, after several offbeat movies like Last Days and Paranoid Park, gives Milk the full treatment with lots of 1970s music and fashions as the Milk man hits the campaign trail, but without ever falling into TV mini-series land.