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MILK The China Syndrome, Wall Street and even Casablanca are examples of movies that happened to be in the right place at the right time – that is to say, life imitated art (or vice versa) as each picture's release neatly dovetailed with real-life incidents that in one way or another mirrored what was happening on-screen. Milk follows suit: Although it's set in the 1970s, it couldn't possibly be more relevant; for that, we have to blame those hideous anti-gay measures that recently passed in California, Florida, Arkansas and Arizona. Back in the '70s, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn) fought against similar hysteria: Tired of homosexuals such as himself being treated as second-class citizens, he found himself drawn to political office as a way in which to fight for equality. Eventually elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he continued to grow in stature and influence, a career ascendancy which did not sit well with Dan White (Josh Brolin), the board's most conservative member – and, as it turned out, its most trigger-happy. The Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk offered a flawless look at the career of this passionate progressive, so it's a testament to the richness of Gus Van Sant's direction and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay that this fictionalized version feels authentic in its every movement. As Milk, Penn delivers the performance of his career, and he's backed by a superlative cast containing only one weak link: Diego Luna as Milk's insecure lover, Jack Lira (James Franco fares much better as Harvey's previous lover, Scott Smith). But this is a small misstep in an otherwise excellent production full of passion and purpose. ****
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED Rarely has patience been such a virtue than when faced with Rachel Getting Married, which gets off to an extremely rough start before eventually finding its stride. Movies about dysfunctional families are trotted out by indie-minded filmmakers with alarming regularity, but better to spend some time with Rachel at the wedding than with Margot at the Wedding. Anne Hathaway, unfairly overlooked in such efforts as Brokeback Mountain and The Devil Wears Prada, commands most of the attention – from both audience members and the other actors – as Kym, a recovering drug addict who returns home to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Kym, who still feels guilty for a past tragedy, is a complete mess and thus is usually at the center of attention. Naturally, Rachel feels resentment while other family members, including the well-meaning dad (Bill Irwin, excellent) and his icy ex-wife (Debra Winger), are at a loss for how to handle Kym and her frequent outbursts. Because the characters created by writer Jenny Lumet (Sidney's daughter) are nothing but brittle and bitchy at the start, it takes some time to warm up to these people and their plights (it's impossible, however, to ever warm up to the film's handheld camera technique, which is so 1990s). But Lumet and director Jonathan Demme ask us to respect their characters' space, and this leisurely approach allows us to more fully appreciate and understand the situations at hand. By the end, we're happy to have been invited. ***
THE READER The Reader, adapted from Bernhard Schlink's bestseller, arrives with all the obvious trappings of a year-end "prestige" picture. But since more time is spent exposing the milky white breasts of Kate Winslet than exposing the horrors of the Holocaust, viewers might be forgiven for thinking they stumbled into a big-budget remake of Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Winslet's Hannah Schmitz is a streetcar conductor in post-WWII Germany who enters into an affair with 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross); as a form of sexual foreplay, she likes him to read to her from the classics. She soon drops out of his life, and it isn't until a few years later, while he's attending college, that she reappears – as a former Nazi guard on trial for the atrocities she allegedly committed during the war. The Reader is a thorny story, and its failing isn't because it elects to answer key questions about its characters in shocking fashion – after all, many great movies are about less-than-admirable figures – but because it waves off these revelations with all the impatience of a restaurant patron shooing away a waiter attempting to remove the soup bowl before it's drained. At first glance, the movie's shifts through time periods (Ralph Fiennes is suitably moody as the older, troubled Michael) keeps us on our toes, but they eventually reveal themselves to be gimmicky to the point of distraction. The picture does head toward a major secret, but I wasn't sure if the answer to this mystery was supposed to provide insight or shift our sympathies or what exactly. All it does is reveal that, despite Winslet's strong performance, Hannah isn't really worthy of our attention – or perhaps even this movie. **1/2