Kinsey Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)November 10th, 2004
KINSEY
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Grade: A-
Directed by: Bill Condon
Written by: Bill Condon
Cast: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, Oliver Platt
Screened at: Fox, NYC, 10/26/04
At about the midpoint of writer-director Bill Condon's "Kinsey," a group of journalists gather around the beleaguered author who is the title figure of this fascinating biopic. One guy asks about the possibility that Kinsey's best-selling 1948 book, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," could be made into a movie. Kinsey responds that there would be little interest in such a project. Therein lies one of the man's fairly considerable errors of judgment, because the film, which has just come out fifty-six years after the scientific study of sex, is a gem. Laura Linney, so absorbing a presence as a horny Columbia University admissions official in "p.s." is beautifully cast as even more of a freethinker than she was then, and Liam Neeson has never been better, not even as Oskar Schindler.
Condon's film is yet another example of how a dramatization, at least in certain stages of a person's life, is a better vehicle to understanding him than the typically dull talking-heads documentary would be. Sure, there is some fictionalization when you treat an actual person is this way, but isn't fiction the best way to explore reality by casting its eye on emotional truth? (To clarify where I'm coming from, I've often taken the controversial position that American History and, indeed, World History, can better be taught through the use of historical fiction–which would include films about, say, Alexander the Great–than via the usual history texts. This is the finest way to feel the zeitgeist with which the students are dealing in every historical period)
Utilizing the same technique employed by Taylor Hackford in his film "Ray," Condon frequently takes us back to Kinsey's youth to give us insight into what made him the rebel he became. Just as Ray Charles Robinson's mother's tough love made the seven-year-old boy the independent soul he was despite his blindness, so does Condon let us into the home life of Alfred Kinsey to illustrate how the young man could scarcely avoid rebelling against an engineering teacher (played by a stern John Lithgow) who would probably fit in just fine in a Taliban society.
Alfred Kinsey's interest in the gall wasp which leads him to collect a million of these insects and thereby become the world authority in this arcane field has a great effect on his studies of sex–but not because he was fascinated by the sex life of the bug. He determined that like snowflakes, no two wasps were exactly alike, then making the fair-enough leap that no two human beings are exactly alike. Therefore no two individuals would enjoy–or not–the same type of sexual practices. With that view in mind, he proceeds to interview a total of 100,000 men, using a wholly non-judgmental tone of voice in talking to them, to examine such notions as 1) when did you start masturbating? 2) when did you have your first sexual experience? 3) your first orgasm? Apparently he and his well- trained apprentices (played by Chris O'Donnell, the always exciting Peter Sarsgaard, and Timothy Hutton) gather sufficient data to release the blockbusting best-seller. Almost needless to say, Kinsey becomes Indiana University's most popular teacher, with lecture halls crammed to the ceiling with sometimes embarrassed but always intensely involved students.
Predictably enough, Kinsey has to struggle against those who think that examining sexual behavior would rot the country's moral fiber, including the school's hygiene teacher, who preaches abstinence–and here we can't fail to see that Bill Condon is casting his net wide, indicting President Bush for his rigid stand in favor of pre-marital abstinence.
Even more interesting than the model Kinsey develops for his study is Condon's look into the author's own sex life. Both he and the students who becomes his wife, Clara McMillen (Laura Linney) were virgins at the time of the marriage, had difficulty during their honeymoon–which Kinsey tells us is not at all uncommon--and solve their physical problems so well that Clara becomes hot to have sex with her husband's associate, the bisexual Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgard). If Kinsey does not appear distressed by virtually witnessing this act, it must be that he considers sex harmless fun and does not connect intercourse with love since, as he puts it, science can measure sex but cannot do likewise with the concept of love.
The entire picture, though dramatized rather than sticking to the conventions of documentary, appears well-researched, featuring a neat design by Richard Sherman, bold photography by Frederick Elmes, and a non-intrusive, soothing music background by Carter Burwell.
Rated R. 118 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
@harveycritic.com
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