Utilizing a significant amount of stock footage from the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, Gus Van Sant's Milk is an interesting cinematic experience in that the viewer is seemingly thrust into San Francisco in the 1970's during the struggle for gay rights and allowed to perceive life from an entirely new perspective. At 40, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) leaves his closeted life in New York with a young hippie (James Franco) for the slowly burgeoning gay mecca of the West, San Francisco. Immediately forced into the world of political activism after encountering homophobia throughout his neighborhood, Harvey acts as a beacon of hope amongst the disenfranchised gay and lesbians of the city and devotes himself entirely to getting elected to political office and bringing together a community. Braving the storm of religious intolerance, hateful bigots, doomed relationships and anonymous threats on his life, Harvey Milk is able to inspire intelligent debate, make impassioned speeches, and elicit real change. Heartfelt and hilarious, tragic and tear-filled, Milk is one of those rare films that shakes us from our sternly held beliefs and awakens within us the insight into our true humanity.