DIR/WRI: Bill Condon • PROD: Gail Mutrux • DOP: Frederick Elmes • ED: Virginia Katz • DES: Richard Sherman • CAST: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow
Alfred Kinsey was the man who caught the world completely off guard when he published Sexual behaviour in the Human Male in 1948. Government Institutions claimed it to be an outrage, while others claim he revolutionised sex and liberated thousands of sexually repressed American youths. Kinsey's report created such a stink in taboo-ridden 40s America that many believed him to be allied with Communist elements, and that his book was designed to destroy American morals and so make the country vulnerable to takeover. That's not bad going in drumming up publicity for a biology professor labouring away in obscurity at the University of Indiana, and whose only previous claim to fame was a bizarre 1929 volume about wasps!
Liam Neeson is Kinsey in Bill Condon's screen version of this scrupulous and obsessive scientist's life. Neeson plays the role with confidence, and is quite assuring to watch. Opening scenes reveal Kinsey as a boy being brought up by his subservient Mother and domineering professor father (played superbly by John Lithgow), who bullies and torments the boy with taunts of inadequacy. Kinsey rebels by keeping secrets from his father, including choosing his own college education.
He goes to university and eventually becomes a lecturer in entomology. He marries Clara McMillan (Laura Linney), a student in his class, but their attempt at intercourse on their wedding night is disastrous. Kinsey and Mac (which he affectionately calls her) go to marriage counselling, and kaboom! Fireworks in the bedroom! He's enthralled by the whole experience, and decides that he wants to dedicate his life to the science of sex. He starts to lecture and show graphic depictions of sex to his shocked and dumbstruck students, before long there are queues of them at his office door all wanting to share their sexually anxieties with him. Kinsey is shocked by the ignorance and repression of their stories.
Kinsey receives funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to investigate matters sexual. But eventually he develops a coldness towards Love; he never mentions the word as he feels its something that cannot be measured, and is therefore not relevant to science. His book is published and it flies off the shelf, but alas it doesn't survive the controversy surrounding it. When Kinsey looks for funding for his second report, 'Sexual Behaviour in the Female', the funding dries up, leaving Kinsey ill and jaded by his attempts.
Kinsey is an interesting film featuring some good performances, with a few laughs are thrown in for good measure. Over all, Kinsey is worth a look, but if you're slightly prudish, or are uncomfortable with the discussion of sex, then this film is not for you; it's probably best to see The Magic Roundabout instead.
Denise Woods
Kinsey is released on 4th March 2005.
