Kinsey Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust668 AT aol DOT com)January 18th, 2005
KINSEY (2004)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Viewed on January 4th, 2005
RATING: Three stars
In today's world, sex is sold and manufactured as if it were a brand name. Look at the titillating magazine issues of "Blender," "Stuff" or even the occasional flash of nearly nude women in "Entertainment Weekly" or "Vogue." Consider the media, particularly when Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction was one of the main cultural events of 2004. So sex is packaged yet President Bush and the religious, puritanical right contend that it is a demonic act. In many ways, we seem to be reverting back to the ideals of the 1950s. Dr. Alfred Kinsey broke the mold of sexual hygiene and sexual performance. Suddenly, America learned that sex was not just about intercourse.
Liam Neeson plays Dr. Kinsey, an Indiana University professor, who at first shows a keen insight on the mating customs of gall wasps, so much so that he teaches a course on it and publishes a book. Somehow, we know the able doctor is capable of so much more. He falls for and marries a student in his class, Clara McMillen (Laura Linney), and on their wedding night, they have some difficulty copulating. They go to see a sexual therapist who reminds Kinsey that his penis is just too long! Nevertheless, Kinsey discovers that mating customs have prohibited and misguided married or unmarried couples in maintaining a good sex life. According a published book of its time, "Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique," masturbation and oral sex were considered deviant acts, specific reasons of which are more fun to read about or discover when seeing the film. Kinsey wants to revise the rules, namely the traditional missionary position, by interviewing people from across the United States to find what men and women really do in their bedrooms. To his shock, he discovers that they do perform many of these sexual acts but the majority of couples seem to live in the dark ages. In 1948, he publishes the highly controversial "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," and in 1953, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female." Storms of protest follow and the media and the good citizens of the country call it smut, considering the blunt sexual terms used such as vagina, penis, etc.
Kinsey himself gets curious as well, performing some of these acts with his wife. The problem arrives when he hires his first researcher, Clyde (Peter Saarsgard), who sleeps with Kinsey. Clara gets furious yet, after some time, accepts it and is asked for a romp in the hay by Clyde! Meanwhile, Kinsey hires more researchers and more controversy follows, especially when he has his own researchers sleep with each other's wives. It is only research, though one gets the impression that not everyone is comfortable with the notion of sex as an experimental tool. Eventually, funding begins to evaporate and the general feeling is that sexual frankness has its limits.
There is a basic character trait of Kinsey's that is left unexplored. Writer-director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters") depicts Kinsey as a stern, ruthless experimenter and attuned to detail, so attuned in fact that it is as if sex is nothing more than sex to him. He forgets that there is such a thing as making love, though he obviously loves his wife. Did Kinsey ever know that sex is not purely an animal act devoid of love? That extramarital affairs, regardless of justification, can have dire consequences for the couples involved? Or was he ever in love?
Liam Neeson plays Dr. Kinsey as well as he can, but I felt something was amiss. The Neeson of "Schindler's List," and of earlier films like "The Good Mother," always felt like he embodied the characters he played. Even a misfire like "Rob Roy" felt like a majestic Neeson performance. Here, playing a nearly stodgy-like character despite his predilection for the mysteries of sex, Neeson is too physically imposing and, dare I say, larger than life. I can't picture Neeson as a doctor who sees no flaws in his experimentation and as someone who defends all odds to show the world that sex is more than it can be. Neeson feels uncomfortable in that skin, as if he is dying to get out of the insides of this character. He twitches, gives us those glaring facial expressions and expected screams, but I always felt a sense of discomfort. I highly doubt that the real Dr. Kinsey was this way, but I could be wrong.
Laura Linney is exceptionally and straightforwardly good as Clara, slowly believing in Kinsey despite radical changes in her sexual appetite. Also worth noting is the restrained Peter Saarsgard as the sexual provocateur, Clyde - he asks for a sexual favor with such delicacy that no woman, or man, can turn him down. Chris O'Donnell is also superb as another researcher who knows his limits when it comes to sexual deviancy. I also enjoyed Timothy Hutton and the always memorable Oliver Platt as the President of Indiana University - he is one of our finest, most colorful character actors. Kudos must also go to John Lithgow in an underwritten yet powerful cameo as Kinsey's father, a staunch minister.
Bill Condon showed his strengths as a storyteller with "Gods and Monsters" and still proves he can make bios that breathe with simplicity and clarity. But the central character of Kinsey still gnaws at me, and Neeson doesn't help make it any easier. By the end of the picture, you get the impression that Kinsey was none too comfortable with the sexual revolution he helped developed.
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