Kinsey (2004)

Directed by Bill Condon. Starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O’Donnell, John Lithgow, Timothy Hutton, Oliver Platt, Dylan Baker, Tim Curry. [R]

Story of biologist-turned-pioneering-sexologist Alfred Kinsey (Neeson) is less a biopic than a fleet-footed chronicle of his rigorous scientific investigation and recording of sexual behavior in the human species. The film takes the shape of a fascinating (even entertaining) lecture: we get lots of information, some rhetorical questions, but we have to furrow out insight on our own in a losing cause. Surely, growing up in a repressed climate thanks to Kinsey’s domineering, conservative father (Lithgow) isn’t the only influence for the man’s preoccupation with sex, but what else are we given? Condon and company rush over personal/private details, such as Kinsey’s homosexual experience with a colleague and his wife (Linney) enjoying the “liberties” of an open marriage—these wrinkles are introduced and forgotten, same as external road bumps on his path to scientific discovery. There’s great clarity and consistency in the key performances, however, so while I was frustrated to be kept at the same clinical distance as any of the researcher’s subjects, I got enough out of the recreation of the restrictive moral climate, the deadpan yet subversive humor, and the sophisticated outlook on “prurient” topics to not be terribly bothered by it. Veronica Cartwright, William Sadler, Lynn Redgrave, David Harbour and John Krasinski all make brief appearances.

69/100