Milk received widespread acclaim from film critics.^[21] As of January 30, 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 93% rating with a 184 fresh and fourteen rotten reviews. The average score is 8/10.^[22] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 84, based on 38 reviews.^[21]
Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "adroitly and tenderly observed," "smartly handled," and "most notable for the surprising and entirely winning performance by Sean Penn." He added, "[W]hile Milk is unquestionably marked by many mandatory scenes . . . the quality of the writing, acting and directing generally invests them with the feel of real life and credible personal interchange, rather than of scripted stops along the way from aspiration to triumph to tragedy. And on a project whose greatest danger lay in its potential to come across as agenda-driven agitprop, the filmmakers have crucially infused the story with qualities in very short supply today - gentleness and a humane embrace of all its characters."^[23]
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said the film "transcends any single genre as a very human document that touches first and foremost on the need to give people hope" and added it "is superbly crafted, covering huge amounts of time, people and the zeitgeist without a moment of lapsed energy or inattention to detail . . . Black's screenplay is based solely on his own original research and interviews, and it shows: The film is richly flavored with anecdotal incidents and details. Milk surfaces in a season filled with movies based on real lives, but this is the first one that inspires a sense of intimacy with its subjects."^[24]
A.O. Scott of The New York Times called Milk, "A Marvel", and wrote the film "is a fascinating, multi-layered history lesson. In its scale and visual variety it feels almost like a calmed-down Oliver Stone movie, stripped of hyperbole and Oedipal melodrama. But it is also a film that like Mr. Van Sant’s other recent work — and also, curiously, like David Fincher’s Zodiac, another San Francisco-based tale of the 1970s — respects the limits of psychological and sociological explanation."^[25]
Christianity Today, a major progressive Christian-faith based periodical, gave the film a positive response.^[15] It stated that "Milk achieves what it sets out to do, telling an inspiring tale of one man's quest to legitimize his identity, to give hope to his community. I'm not sure how well it'll play outside of big cities, or if it will sway any opinions on hot-button political issues, but it gives a valiant, empathetic go of it." It also stated that the portrayal of Dan White was very fair and humanized and portrayed as more of a flawed and tragically opinionated character, rather than a "typical 'crazy Christian villain' stereotype".^[15]
In contrast, John Podhoretz of the neoconservative magazine Weekly Standard blasted the portrayal of Harvey Milk, saying that it treated the "smart, aggressive, purposefully offensive, press-savvy" activist like a "teddy bear". Podhoretz also argued that the film glosses over Milk's polyamorous relationships; he opined that this contrasts Milk from present day gay rights activists fighting over monogamous same-sex marriage.^[26]
Screenwriter and journalist Richard David Boyle, who described himself as a former political ally of Milk's, stated that the film made a creditable effort of recreating the era. He also wrote that Penn captured Milk's "smile and humanity", and his sense of humor about his homosexuality. Boyle reserved criticism for what he felt was the film's inability to tell the whole story of Milk's election and demise.^[27]
The Advocate, while supporting the film in general, criticized the choice of Penn given the actor's support for the government of Cuba despite the country's anti-gay rights record.^[28] Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen said in the article "that Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator that put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling."^[28] Los Angeles Times film critic Patrick Goldstein commented in response to the controversy, "I'm not holding my breath that anyone will be holding Penn's feet to the fire