Kinsey

Here's a major problem in drama. You want to deal with big issues, great disembodied, cosmic sweeps of things. Things that people love or make them suffer. This is why people come.

But the tools we have to display these things are humans, usually. So the dramatist has to invent or find situations that have humans, human behavior and these grandsweeps entangled in some way. And it has to be a particular way so that the engagement with the humans on the screen leads us somehow to those sweeps.

Sometimes the connection is daft as we equate certain people as surrogates for trends. I had a school teacher that (twice!) showed us "Johnny Tremain" as our main lesson on the Revolutionary War.

Okay. One of the big things that entices and scars us is sex, and particularly its incomprehensible but overwhelming nature. So what makes more sense to us, who wish to understand it, than a story about a man who dedicated his life to understanding it?

Well, there are two problems, long before you get to the skill of the thing. The first is that if the character is to bring us to the topic, he has to be fully entangled. The two have to merge in a way that when we see and understand him, we find ourselves incidentally in the clouds of the thing he represents. It doesn't happen.

And part of the reason is the nature of the man himself. Ordinary audiences think of science as a single notion. But it is not. There is the business of noting what is there, but that is the secretarial work of science. Mere accounting. Then there is the business of spinning abstractions, models, theories then insight and understanding. Kinsey was the first and blindly so, in fact he would appear to a full scientist just as Tim Curry's character is to him here.

Counting is not comprehension. So in real life, this is more of a "Tucker" story than a John Nash one. And it is mighty hard to weave that entanglement if it was never there, and the nature of the thing takes you in the wrong direction.

What underscores this is that the opposing forces here — religious moralists, pontificating politicians — are stronger and more numerous today when it comes to matters sexual than more than 50 years ago. There's been negative progress, both because Kinsey was off, but also because people like those behind this film actually thought that was the good fight.

Linney gets it. She's a pleasure in any project. She gets it because she conveys to us the simple tolerance of her man and all that surrounds him, including the film crew and we the audience. She shows us all that she knows we're fooling ourselves about this, and that wisdom and insight is deadly elusive.

Its going to take more than the Ron Howard school of film-making to make us fly into sexual insights. it is a clever idea to frame the thing as an interview with him, to introduce him as an interviewer. Just not enough.

There's a very fine bit of acting in this. Almost at the end, in less than three minutes, Lynn Redgrave is an interviewee who tells Kinsey he saved her life. Watch it and believe. Here is an example of how that entanglement can work.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Bill Condon, working with his own material has come out with a movie that serves to illustrate how the work of Dr. Kinsey awoke the American public to a better understanding of their sexuality in ways no one, up to that point, had ever dared to show. As he proved with his other film, "Gods and Monsters", Mr. Condon shows he doesn't mind tackling adult themes, so scarce in the present cinema.

The film is documentary in style, as we are shown the life of Kinsey at different times of his life. He had an unhappy childhood. His father was a tyrant who never really showed love toward him. There are moments when the young Kinsey is shown as boy scout and there is an element of homosexuality that maybe, for fear, never came to the surface, but it's there, nonetheless.

Dr. Kinsey's life takes a turn when he meets, Clara McMillen, who he calls "Mac". It's with her that he begins a life of discovery in the field of human sexuality that was taboo in American colleges and universities at the time. Albert Kinsey was the first one that spoke about the things that were never said in polite company, or in the classroom, up to that moment. His life was dedicated to understand what made human beings act the way they did, never being judgmental, but with a tremendous insight to interpret the data and present it in a comprehensible way.

A puritanical American society reacted strongly against the findings of Dr. Kinsey. He was a man ahead of his times when he decided to gather information about the sex lives of Americans and to publish the results in a best selling book.

As Dr. Kinsey, Liam Neeson, showing an uncanny resemblance to the man, himself, does a wonderful job. He shows a complicated character who was not easily understood by his associates and students. As "Mac", his wife, Laura Linney with a dark wig, gives an articulate performance of Mrs. Kinsey. Both actors are wonderful together, as they have already shown in the New York stage.

Peter Sargaard, as Clyde, Dr. Kinsey's first assistant, shows he is an actor that will amaze from picture to picture. This actor has the ability to get under each of his character's skins to make them real, as is the case with his Clyde. Also, almost unrecognizable, Chris O'Donnell, who plays Wardell, one of the interviewers working with the doctor. Timothy Hutton is Gebhard, the other associate who was instrumental in gathering the information to help complete Dr. Kinsey's report. John Lithgow, as Kinsey Sr. has a fantastic moment with Mr. Neeson, as he agrees to be interviewed, revealing a horrible secret. It's a wonderful moment done with panache by both actors working under exceptional direction.

There is a moment toward the end of the film where we see Lynn Redgrave speaking directly to the camera. It is one of the most effective moments in the film when this woman tells Dr. Kinsey about her life as a lesbian.

Mr. Condon's film clarifies a lot about the genius of Kinsey and his contribution to society.

Writer/Director Bill Condon does a thoroughly detailed, fascinating study of the life of famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in the drama, Kinsey. What would on surface seem unfilmable is done with great sensitivity and honesty.

Condon knows how to tell stories about real people (Gods and Monsters), and here is a life filled with curiosity and far reaching accomplishment.

Raised in a repressed family dominated by a stern father, Kinsey is portrayed as an isolated teen who rebels against not only his father, but against sexual convention. As a science instructor in college, he meets a student who becomes his wife. As other students look more and more to him for sexual advice, his original interest in insect studies changes to sex adviser and ultimately sex researcher. His team of assistants and even their wives become involved in the research. As Kinsey's study requires sample interviews across the country, a diverse, amazing discovery of sexual habits and statistics are revealed. The study ultimately becomes published in a groundbreaking best seller amid a swell of damnation from the public.

Condon interweaves the science with the human element in a very intelligent screenplay. It is remarkable that such a coherent storyline emerges from a multitude of scientific and news sources. The movie also says a lot about the state of the country at a time in mid twentieth century America when the Red Scare was in full swing and the populace was guided by the morals and sensibilities of its time. Kinsey's relationship with his wife is the thread that ties the film together thematically. She essentially becomes the barometer for his work and his shortcomings. Here is a man who was brilliant and at the same time fallible.

There is no epilogue at film's end as might be expected for a biography, but it is a nice touch for a film that tries to approach its subject with freshness and reverence. The set design and costumes are all authentic in period flavor, but the film seems to be focused not on marking the precise year but depicting an era or time. Do stay for the amusing end credits which show a veritable Noah's Ark of animals in their glory.

Liam Neeson is very good as the obsessed scientist who tries to conduct meaningful, quantifiable research while reconciling the emotional toll on his marriage and his friendships. Laura Linney is in fine form as the supportive wife who observes and then participates in her husband's venture.

As his research assistants, Timothy Hutton, Chris O'Donnell, and Peter Sarsgaard round out a very strong ensemble cast. In fact, these fine actors are almost wasted in supporting roles. John Lithgow is pitch perfect as Kinsey's cruel, insensitive father. There is a nice, near cameo appearance by Lynn Redgrave (Gods and Monsters) as the last interview of Kinsey, and she resonates in her brief appearance.

In keeping with the subject matter, there is graphic dialogue and sexual depictions, but there is nothing exploitive or without narrative purpose here. It is interesting to note that this film is coming on the heels of a moralistic backlash of media content and permissiveness. By showing how well-intended human studies into formerly taboo subjects helped to enlighten and reexamine human behavior, Kinsey proves to be the right film for the right time.

Just as the focus of "Kinsey" thought he was being objective about a topic that had only been treated subjectively, the film is not an objective bio-pic.

For the first half of the movie, the exquisite production design, costumes and make-up effectively recreate middle America before World War II, as Kinsey's rigid upbringing and equally rigid scientific life as a zoologist are established.

Laura Linney as first his student then his wife adds an earthy and warm element and her excellent acting adds womanliness beyond the script to the movie that is missing otherwise. Their gradual move into teaching and studying sexuality is shown convincingly in contrast to the prigs around them, with, ironically surely, Tim Curry playing his puritanical academic rival.

Accurate details include showing and reading from a popular marriage manual, Theodoor H. van de Velde's "Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique;" when I ran a used book sale at my local synagogue we would get many unread copies donated from now elderly couples who had received it as part of pre-marital rabbinical counseling and it was hilarious how sexist and inaccurate it was.

But writer/director Bill Condon takes considerable interpretive leaps as he moves on to "the inner circle," as T. Coraghessan Boyle terms it in his fictionalized interpretation, when Kinsey hires, trains, works and lives closely with male assistants for his first research project on men.

Peter Sarsgaard is the stand out in the trio, as outstanding as his role in "Shattered Glass" and as all holds barred as in "The Center of the World." But his characterization leans toward a cavalier attitude towards women that is emblematic of this film until literally the last minute. I don't see why his character would be jealous to the point of fisticuffs of the attentions Timothy Hutton's flirtatious assistant would be paying to his wife when he seemed to condescend to marriage only for appearance's sake anyway.

The film dwells on gay men and skips through the research done to produce the second tome on women, pointing out mostly Kinsey's corrective biological information, therefore gliding over how it was the revelations about women that shocked the nation and led to difficult political and other consequences, though Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman had promulgated similar information about women decades earlier (and had been hounded out of the country for their efforts). The Kinsey Institute's FAQ on their Web site point out the active partnership of female research assistants for this work, who simply don't exist in the film. (And the Congressional investigations of foundations in the 1950's didn't just focus on the Rockefeller Foundation's funding of Kinsey, but they haven't yet posted their correctives on their Web site.)

Similarly, as Kinsey is shown taking the leap from taxonomy to adviser as an avatar of the coming sexual revolution, the psychological component of relationships, let alone sex, only comes up once such that Liam Neeson's characterization ultimately seems naive. But Condon is more interested in the political component, as he clearly sees a similar tide of conservative criticism rising across the land again.

One also gets the feeling that someone either read the script or saw a working print of the film and had to gently point out to Condon that women simply get short shrift, so suddenly an extremely poignant coda is added, with Lynn Redgrave as a very moving interviewee on how Kinsey's work affected her life directly.

The aging make-up and cinematography are beautiful in indicating the passage of time, matching seasonal passings and making early discussions seem to have been documented in black and white.

The casting of the many research subjects is wonderfully varied and the New York metropolitan area locations, recognizable only to the cognoscenti, stand in very well for varied cities, academic and sylvan locales.

The closing credits are surrounded by fun period songs and zoological interactions.

One of the mid-20th century sexologists, Alfred C. Kinsey, is brought to life through a stellar performance by Liam Neeson. Screenplay writer & director, Bill Condon, who should have won an Oscar for "Gods and Monsters," uses an enticing technique of switching between B&W scenes & color ones. In the former, Kinsey is depicted as a subject, in a clinical setting, responding to his own sex survey questions. In the latter, Condon takes us through flashbacks of choice intimate events during Kinsey's younger life. This combination of screenplay & direction movement between the past in color & the present in B&W seems contradictory. However, it is quite effective to draw out the importance of how significant, if not 'colorful', Kinsey's upbringing was while living in his father-preacher's (John Lithgow) anti-sexual & puritanical home.

Kinsey's sexology includes so many open-ended questions that they leave room for respondents to elaborate upon their true sexual experiences. Their thousands of responses included in Kinsey's research {published as "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) & "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)} are anything but black & white! It is to Kinsey's credit, his passion, the effectiveness of his research techniques, that sexology discovered US respondents were eager to speak about sex. Since Kinsey's findings are not what the US public expected to learn, his research became controversial. For instance, the first book found males had many more same-gender sexual experiences than anyone imagined. The second book really rocked the world when Kinsey's research showed that females shared the same sexual desires as males! From the start of the film to the end it is loaded with sexological words: in other words, the clinical names for genital body parts & sexual activities. Sexual activities are spoken of scientifically & sometimes depicted. This is not by any means a pornographic motion picture. It is about the science of sexology. But, most especially, it is a fine film that aptly portrays both the research & intimate passions of the world famous US sexologist, Kinsey.

It's not necessarily an adults-only film; depending upon how well prepared & educated teens are in studies of human sexual behavior. I feel Condon masters the topics of sexology & sexualities.