I think another blatant omission from the best supporting performance category is the “Boy” on the Wheelchair from Minnesota. Between him and Luna’s Lira, it’s going to be tough call, both push the entire film into a screeching (in Luna’s case, whiny) halt, commanding attention away from the heroes vs villains political stage to truly heartfelt depictions of normally eye-rolling caricatures like the “attention whore” and the “disabled youth with a heart of gold.” Those terms you pulled from the critics, “embarrassing,” “camp,” and “annoying” should also be applied to this seemingly 2008-looking hipster boy (the phone call a sort of time machine device to our present, with the wink wink cameo by Cleve Jones himself). You might even place his performance (so memorable, he’s not even listed on IMDB) in the grand tradition of Judi Dench’s split-second tour de forces. Here’s my gameplan: Diego Luna can still call up Harmony Korine for critically-acclaimed parts, but this handicap novice needs an Oscar to catapult him to the top like Abigail Breslin, another out-of-nowhere fresh face. Move over, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and the revelatory Emile Hirsch, because these two amateurs are gonna blow away our expectations on the morning of Jan. 22.

Joie: As much as I hate for my argument to be attacked with so much spite, I do greatly appreciate your skill for sarcasm.

I am a huge Diego Luna fan and have a lot of respect for his talent and discipline. He never plays the same character twice, chooses interesting roles, and has good range in general. But I found his portrayal of Jack Lira totally off the mark. He was playing a stereotype as opposed to the troubled, turbulent soul that Jack Lira once was. However, I blame the director Gus Van Zandt for this misstep. All he had to do was wsay, “Don’t play it that way — play it this way.” The main problem with Luna’s portrayal is that he portrays Lira in a comical fashion — a silly queen with possibly a drinking problem. Because this character is never revealed more fully (and that may also be the fault of the script), the character’s suicide seems out of place. There’s a serious disconnect here between the silly queen used for comic relief and the suicidal man.

@ Christopher Campbell: Sorry about using the word “queen.” That was insensitive on my part.

As for the sketchy portrayal of Jack Lira, I disagree with you. While it may be problematic to write a part about someone who was not well known, the film could have done a better job at showing aspects of Jack Lira that it already claimed in the first place. Creative license. What little is known about Jack is that he was an alcoholic, was very needy, and had a sad history (his father beating him and probably kicking him out of the house). It is also known/remembered that he felt alienated/misunderstood not only by Milk’s circle of friends and supporters, but as an immigrant without any real connections in the US. So, from those things and the fact that he committed suicide, we can pretty safely say that he was a turbulent soul with a lot of heavy baggage. But the part is written and played in a comical fashion which jars awkwardly with the suicide scene. For this part of movie, the audience should see the suicide coming, should see the emotional anguish building. But that doesn’t happen because there is no scene really showing Jack being upset and expressing himself / articulating his problems. We just see him getting upset (once) when Harvey promises to come home by 6:15 and then — WHAM — he’s hung himself. Does that make any sense to you?

The movie dialogue tells us that the other people in Harvey’s life didn’t respect Jack or include him … and thought the relationship would only last a week at best. At another point in the movie, Harvey acknowledges to his former boyfriend that the relationship may be a flimsy one but it was a nice escape from his political life in the day (or words to that effect). Then Harvey says something about getting older and being lucky to at least being able to have a relatively young, gold-looking man in his life. He says this jokingly, but it’s very revealing as to the nature of their relationship. It would appear that Harvey viewed Jack as something of a Latino Boy Toy.

But what is Jack’s reaction to all of this? Surely, he could not have been happy with it. But we don’t see any scene where this is shown. We only see a quick scene of him pleading with Harvey to come home and then, in the next scene, he’s hung himself.

It doesn’t help that Luna plays Jack Lira in such a comical fashion. In the few scenes he is in, he could have played Jack as more troubled and dark, rather than silly. Again, like I said, this could have been the director’s fault for not making the correction.

I read in another blog a critic’s comment about this weakness and he said that it was almost offensive they way they handled Jack’s character. I would agree. If someone commits suicide, you don’t make a movie that portrays him so offhandedly and incompletely.

@ Christopher Campbell: Absolutely — it’s impossible to tell the full story of Jack Lira and even if it were possible, it would have steered the movie off-course. So I see what you mean in that respect.

It’s just that what little is revealed of Lira, I feel, is done in a clumsy manner. I would have taken out Lira’s part where he locks himself in a closet and replaced it with a three-minute scene of him and Harvey having an emotional argument (or just Lira being emotional/drunk and expressing himself) instead. It would be a transitional scene revealing to the audience that he’s become totaly unhinged. Then the next Lira scene would have been him pleading to Harvey to come home, hanging himself, etc. I feel just that one kind of change would have made a huge difference.

The reason I do not think Lira’s character and suicide should be shrugged off is because this is not a fictional movie. It’s a biopic, so it has some responsibility to cover various events with some depth. That includes Harvey Milk’s personal life (which, apparently, was a mess). Milk did not have nearly the success in his love life as he did in the world of politics. The movie needed to show that, and hence his inclusion in the film in the first place.

Moreover, I think something as dramatic as suicide in one’s life needs to be covered more sincerely. Lira was not a fictional character to be used as a “plot device.” Rather, he was an actual person who, for better or worse, had an impact on Milk’s life and therefore could not be ignored. … Sure, the closet scene did reveal Lira’s inner turmoil to some extent, but that was undermined by the fact that it was *comical* — a poor choice that does not set up the next sequence of events very well. As I said, that part could have been replaced by a more dramatic, revealing scene of him actually becoming unhinged, while drunk, and *explaining* his inner turmoil. In other words, realism should have been used in at least one Lira scene.