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Gus Van Sant’s Milk is a very rare beast in Hollywood. It’s a biopic released during awards season that actually feels as though it was made for deeper reasons than sheer awards mongering. Telling the story of Harvey Milk (America’s first openly gay politician) was clearly a task that had emotional resonance for Van Sant who is probably the most successful openly gay director working in Hollywood. He passion for the subject helps lift the film above the standard bio-pic clichés and it certainly doesn’t hurt that he has a fascinating story worth telling.

Van Sant’s film wisely focuses only on the last years of Harvey’s life, when he took up politics. There are no weepy childhood flashbacks here, the movie is only focused on the good stuff. We see Harvey (brilliantly played by Sean Penn) fall in love with James Franco and leave behind his closeted white-collar life in New York for San Francisco. Once there, he quickly becomes involved with the gay activist scene, decides to run for office, succeeds and uses his authority wisely before being murdered by a fellow politician Dan White (Josh Brolin).

It’s an interesting an important story, but one that also could have easily become a TV-movie caliber weepy in the hands of a lesser director. For the most part Van Sant keeps to the facts with his film and never spirals off into needless sentimentality (with the exception of one completely disposable subplot involving a wheelchair-bound fan). While the movie has a far more conventional narrative structure than any of the director’s recent efforts (Elephant, Last Days, etc), Van Sant does incorporate a few of the stylistic techniques that he has been experimenting in those films when appropriate. He also experiments with a variety of film stocks giving the movie some unique and effective visuals.

But, as good as Van Sant is behind the camera, it’s nothing compared to the talent that he’s managed to assemble in front of the camera. Sean Penn completely disappears into the role of Harvey Milk and is at time heartbreakingly real (big surprise there). Josh Brolin is also brilliant as Dan White, giving a potentially one-dimensional villain character enough depth to be a surprisingly tragic figure. It would probably be considered the best work of Brolin’s career were it not for the fact that it comes shortly after his astounding work in W.. Both Penn and Brolin are sure to get some deserved attention when award nominations are announced. The rest of the cast (including James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, and Alison Pill) are all excellent as well, if not quite as memorable as either Penn or Brolin.