I find separating "Milk" the film from today's gayrights politics an impossible dilemma. As I write this review, California Attorney General Jerry Brown is asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the gay marriage ban. Former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr plans to argue for its acceptance. No local issue was more bitterly fought this past election, and if Hollywood is indeed a mirror of society, perhaps no film was better timed to reflect the country's conflict with secular freedoms.

Perhaps the best way to understand "Milk" is to strip the sexual veneer from the heart of the film. To define "Milk's" essence is to see the portrayal of any minority from a different perspective— from the vantage point of dissent.

There's a subtle kinship here with the segregated South depicted in Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple," with migrant farm workers in "The Grapes of Wrath," with India's subservience to British domination in "Gandhi" and even with the subtle disdain of Jews and African-Americans in "Driving Miss Daisy."

But I suspect some of us won't pull back the opaque shrouds of our own convictions long enough to judge this film on its merits. "Milk" will remain nothing more than a "gay" film—and there are so many fluffier offerings this holiday season. I suspect those who voted for Proposition 8 will likely be loath to view this film and those who voted against Prop. 8 may rally around its message as a talisman of scathing indictment.

Other than drama fans, I suspect neither side will pause long enough to view "Milk" as a quiet, well-scripted, beautifully acted tribute to one man who saw freedom in America from a slightly different perspective.

Strictly as a drama, one finds a very provocative, well-crafted, slightly meandering and incomplete film that pseudo-documents the life and death of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were killed by former colleague Dan White.

The film documents Milk's life long before he and White became acquainted. For much of Milk's life, the primal adversary was the rejection of mainstream America. In the early '70s, even San Francisco wasn't "gay friendly"—cops and politicians turned a blind eye to local and occasionally lethal prejudices. Harvey Milk was an unassuming, unlikely advocate who managed to politicize his largely gay neighborhood and, after several unsuccessful attempts at public office, finally got elected by his peers.

Director Gus Van Zant frontloads "Milk" with enough grainy stock footage to give the film a compelling authenticity, and Sean Penn infuses his character with personality worth watching. Had Milk simply been a gay activist who lived happily ever after, I suspect the film would still have found an audience. That Milk's fervor (not over being gay, but at advocating gay rights) leads to his death only fans the dramatic embers, the realization that one can still die in America for wanting no more, but no less, than the other guy.

Harvey Milk is stunningly portrayed by Sean Penn in probably the finest role of an extraordinary career of character morphing. His performance is no less astounding than Jamie Foxx's in "Ray" or Philip Seymour Hoffman's in "Capote" (both actors winning Oscars for their portrayals, by the way).

Milk's real adversary doesn't appear until late in the film. The taut, under-the-radar performance by Josh Brolin nicely plays off of Milk's flagrant charisma. But we see too little of the mangled machinery that makes White tick.

So, is "Milk" a gay film? For the slightly phobic, be forewarned: Men do kiss and cuddle, but on the other hand, one actually senses genuine love between samesex partners. Not the physical act, but rather the emotional being. This isn't about two cowboys bucking broncos in the wilderness; "Milk" is as much a love story as it is a film about discrimination.

My advice? View the film as one man's homespun challenge to injustice, and "Milk" becomes far more than a genre flick. Right or wrong, like it or not, I suspect "Milk" illustrates an intriguing, integral facet of 20th-century Americana.