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Laura Linney & Liam Neeson
solve a medical problem
Photo: Ken Regan/Camera 5

KINSEY
Directed & Written by: Bill Condon.
Produced by: Gail Mutrux.
Director of Photography: Frederick Elmes.
Edited by: Virginia Katz.
Music by: Carter Burwell.
Released by: Fox Searchlight.
Country of Origin: USA. 118 min. Rated: R.
With: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell & Peter Sarsgaard.
DVD Features: Commentary by director Bill Condon. English & Spanish audio. English & Spanish subtitles.

In what has quickly become the year of the biopic, the new film from director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) follows the life of groundbreaking sex researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), tracing the doctor's life from repressed youth to controversial author of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which created a stir in 1940s conservative America. Condon is mainly interested in Kinsey as a field worker, showing us that he didn't necessarily provide new information so much as revealed what was simply not talked about at the time.

As the new instructor of biology at Indiana University, Kinsey, alarmed by the lack of scientific data on sexual behavior, forms his own team of researchers. The resulting confidential and nonjudgmental personal interviews comprise some of Kinsey's most riveting moments. Soon enough, the doctor is teaching a highly divisive class on sexual behavior (complete with overhead projections of both male and female genitals). The film, like the professor, does not back away from its sexual content. As a result of his research, Kinsey applies his observations of gall wasps to humans - "Everyone is different."

The film has many great performances. Liam Neeson is remarkably cold and unemotional as a man looking to find the root cause for the male sexual drive, and Peter Sarsgaard is both charming and smarmy as Clyde Martin, the doctor's right-hand man who gains an overzealous appreciation for Kinsey and his wife. Yet for all its great acting, and the admittedly humorous scenes of sexual irreverence, Kinsey is strangely ineffective.

Recent films like Ray and The Sea Inside succeed in taking an intriguing figure and centering the story on the man and not his circumstance. The problem with Kinsey is that its main character is simply not that interesting, even as Neeson does what he can as a man unable to adequately express his inner emotions. Perhaps that's why T.C. Boyle takes the opposite view of Kinsey in the novel The Inner Circle, by portraying him as a sexual manipulator.

However, Condon does make sure that this briskly-paced film, while never quite heartfelt, is at the very least always entertaining. Most captivating of all is a final scene, an interview involving Lynn Redgrave as an elderly lesbian. Her pitch-perfect monologue almost makes the viewer wish that they had just seen her story rather than that of the stonewalled Kinsey. Michael Belkewitch
December 22, 2004

DVD Extras: Alfred Kinsey approached life rather methodologically, hence his non-judgmental behavior and his dry social interactions. Bill Condon’s audio commentary contains a certain methodological approach as well. Thankfully, Condon is not dry like his subject, but he tends to dampen his commentary with too much focus on the actors and the process of filmmaking; it is often bland compared to the historical significance and personal intricacies of the real-life Kinsey. There are a few memorable facts about the overall production of this film, one being the initial intention to have Ian McKellen narrate the story. But Condon speaks most provocatively when the film reaches the revolutionary scientist’s downfall. It is then the filmmaker mentions the timing of the film: it was released just after the 2004 presidential election, when one of its key issues dealt with sexual tolerance - gay marriage. Condon says that today Kinsey would be excited by the ground we’ve covered in sexual education and awareness, but he would also notice how much we have stayed the same. He quotes a Kinsey biographer, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, who said the US is “the most licentious culture since Rome” and yet “the most puritanical culture ever invented.” Unfortunately, most of the commentary veers away from talk like this. James Schwartz
July 29, 2005

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