Kinsey

3.5/4

Starring: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, Oliver Platt, Chris O'Donnell, Timothy Hutton, Dylan Baker, Tim Curry

Rated R for Pervasive Sexual Content including Some Graphic Images and Descriptions

In some ways, "Kinsey," the film, is as important today as Kinsey's research was back when it was released.  Although we as a society at least acknowledge human sexuality as existing, it is still considered taboo.  Consider the Christian Right's almost fanatic furor over sex education, homosexuality and abortion.  Or another example, the MPAA.  We certainly have come a long way from where we were, but in order for children and adults to be well-adjusted, we still have work to do to decrease our skittishness in terms of human sexuality.

Alfred Kinsey (Neeson) is a young professor at Indiana University.  Affectionately called "Prok" by his graduate students, he obsessively collects bugs for study.  But after a disastrous encounter with his new wife Clara (Linney), he begins to understand the need for more information about human sexuality.  Thus he goes down the long road towards candidly interviewing thousands of people about their sexual histories in the name of science.  Naturally, this doesn't occur without a lot of controversy.

Watching the film, it's immediately obvious what the problem with the film is: there's too much material to fit in a two hour movie.  What is on screen is fascinating, but for the most part we only get a little sample of each.  Strange as it may sound for a dramatic biopic like this, an extra half hour would have been warranted (even though it's already two hours long).  Or maybe it's that there's too much information to be put into a narrative form, and the subject matter would be better realized in the documentary format.  But then we'd lose out on the wonderful performances.  Whatever the cause is, the loads of information drown out writer/director Bill Condon's attempts to provide narrative thrust to the film.

With a cast of such great character actors, it's no surprise that the acting is strong (save for a few hiccups here and there).  Liam Neeson plays Kinsey as a man so devoted and obsessed with his research that he comes across as almost autistic.  His quest for knowledge and openness has blinded him to the main reason why sex is so volatile in the first place: it's inextricably linked to emotion (in some more than others).  In a relentless journey to break down barriers, he is unaware of the people he may be hurting.  Certainly, knowledge about sex, the fundamental building block of life, is essential, but what he doesn't understand is how personal it is, regardless of prejudice and religious-based morality.  "Sex is a risky game because if you're not careful, it will cut you wide open," his colleague, Clyde Martin (Sarsgaard) tells him.  Prejudice may be the face of his enemy, but it his not understanding of this fact that brings about his downfall.  Laura Linney is very good as his supportive but somewhat exasperated wife.  She knows he has faults, but she loves him nonetheless.  Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, and the rest of the cast do excellent work.

Bill Condon is a good filmmaker.  His debut, the biopic of director James Whale, was well acted, but unevenly scripted.  The same thing applies here.  Condon has bitten off more than he can chew, or at least given himself too little time to fully say what he wants to.  Certainly, this is an important and informative film (one would falsely hope that the MPPA would have learned something by watching it), but there are so many areas that the film fails to sufficiently explore.