you've got to give them hope

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/
"Milk"
Directed by Gus Van Sant
2008

As I was leaving, I overheard some other theatergoers discussing the issue of gay marriage. Oddly enough, that subject never crossed my mind while watching "Milk" - which is a great movie, by the way. I was thinking of "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington." What interested me about "Milk" is its depictions of good and evil.

Harvey Milk, as the movie opens, is a closeted insurance agent celebrating his 40th birthday. And he says, "I've forty years old and I've done nothing with my life that I'm proud of." And then he comes out of the closet, moves to San Diego, and becomes a leader in the nascent gay community there. He runs for elected office several times and loses repeatedly. But he perseveres, and is elected, and passes gay rights legislation, and prevents other anti-gay legislation (Proposition 6) from being passed. Milk's heroism is in perseverance and hope: he believes in the promise of America, and he does his level best to see it fulfilled - despite the fact that he's a completely ordinary man.

Dan White, on the other hand, seems to be a small man. His sort of evil is not the implacable evil of another Josh Brolin movie, "No Country For Old Men." Rather, it's a tremendously banal, small, awful evil. It's the sort of evil that gets into White and slowly tears him apart (two years after being released from his four-year term, he committed suicide). He's the sort of villain who manages to do truly awful things without appearing any more fearsome than a cockroach.