The Times of Harvey Milk

Despite an opening half hour that’s almost disastrously dry, The Times of Harvey Milk inevitably comes off as a tremendously entertaining and surprisingly moving look at the life and death of San Francisco’s first openly gay councillor. Director Rob Epstein paints an incredibly vivid portrait of his subject through the judicious use of stock footage and new interviews, and it’s subsequently impossible to walk away from the film without feeling a great deal of admiration for Harvey Milk and his various accomplishments. The relatively light-hearted midsection, which is primarily devoted to Milk’s trials and tribulations as a struggling do-gooder and (eventually) a respected politician, ultimately gives way to an unexpectedly affecting stretch revolving around Milk’s senseless assassination, with the activist’s death sure to trigger an emotional response within even the most apathetic of viewers.

***1/2 out of ****