Misbehaviour

Misbehaviour is a great, reasonably balanced if a little formulaic comedy drama that's funny and relevant. Keira Knightly and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are both incredible. Jessie Buckley, Rhys Ifans and Greg Kinnear are all great. Philippa Lowthorpe's direction is also great, it's well filmed and well paced. The music by Dickon Hinchcliffe is really good and the soundtrack is good.

Indeed, the best thing was the post-movie credits with the real heroines making an appearance. How on earth they managed to create something so dull about women so inspiring ? The real heroines, even at their 70's, have more passion, more inspiration, more feelings in their eyes and in the few seconds we saw them they gave us more emotions than the darn whole movie.

I wasn't aware about the events and even at the end of the movie I never felt like what the girls did was important for women's movement. It was quite anticlimactic.. Biggest problem was they never managed to build well the sexist/patriarchy environment the women were living in at the time, so we can understand the impact of their actions. Whoever wrote the script was like filtering everything through a 2020 optic. I am not even sure why a large portion of the story was dedicated to Bob Hope. Bit of a shame really this wasn't good.

All 5 stars for the real ladies at the end of the movie.

It's the 1970 Miss World competition in London. Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear) is to be the host. Eric Morley (Rhys Ifans) is the organizer. Women are objectified in society. Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley) is divorced with a young girl. She gets into University College London for higher learning. She joins a women's liberation movement but is trying to work within the system. On the other hand, Jo Robinson (Jessie Buckley) is looking to take down the whole system, one graffiti at a time. Miss Sweden Marjorie Johansson is the favorite but is bitter at the situation. Due to pressure against apartheid, Morley quickly adds a black contestant from South Africa in addition to the white Miss South Africa. Miss Grenada Jennifer Hosten (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) wants to be a broadcaster.

It's a bit of lesser known history. It's told in a relatively light fashion. The characters are essentially split into three groups. Knightley and Buckley lead the story of the protesters. The three contestants form the group inside the pageant. Bob Hope and Morley are the clueless men representing the male patriarchy. Each group contributes something important and interesting. There are little nuggets of greatness but they are scattered everywhere. The movie would function better and more cohesively with fewer main characters. At last, that may not be possible to tell the whole story. There is a lot of stuff crammed into this light comedic movie. I do question the final meeting between Hosten and Alexander. Maybe it happened in real life. I would think that Hosten would be better off talking to Johnasson which is more likely. The meeting in the movie feels somewhat manufactured. All in all, one learns a little bit of light history done in a light humorous way.

There was no real bite. A reasonable watch, but it lacked something. Having grown up through the era where Miss World was presented as family entertainment, the culture made for some very uncomfortable viewing.

A nice comedy about beauty contest, feminism, Bob Hope proposed, in fair way, by Greg Kienner and beautiful portrait of Dolores Hope by Lesley Manville. A reasonable social critic and inspired recreated atmosphere of the period.