This briskly paced biographical film that conveys the kind of documentary "it is happening now" that so often accompanies great filmmaking begins with the movie's main subject, Harvey Milk, feeling despondent on his fortieth birthday.

"I've accomplished nothing," Sean Penn, playing Milk, relates with a brutally self-appraising sadness.  In the keen hope that he can change that situation Milk embarks from his New York City base to San Francisco.  

Milk takes another significant step by launching his own business, a camera shop on Castro Street in the heart of the city by the bay's homosexual district.

In breaking down barriers for the gay population, Milk reversed a trend that was marching in the opposite direction in the wake of homophobic ballot measures afflicting other cities and counties throughout America.