Kinsey

2004 brings us Kinsey, the biographical film about Alfred Kinsey, the sex research pioneer. The film, directed by Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls), would cover much of Kinsey’s research and his lifestyle and present many ethical questions about his type of research and about the moral or emotional cost his research may have had on his own life and on the lives of his colleagues. Like most biographical films of this nature, Kinsey utilizes a broad cast of characters to shed light on its subject and features a wide narrative that spans the key moments in Alfred Kinsey’s life.

Liam Neeson stars as Alfred Kinsey. The film opens with Kinsey being interviewed about his own sex history as a part of his project. He reveals many of the key moments of his life through the interview process and, through the use of a flashback, reveals the relationship between his father (John Lithgow) and himself. Kinsey’s relationship with his father was consistently marred with disappointing instances, as his father’s deep religious convictions often gave way to ludicrous viewpoints regarding human sexuality. Using this as a catalyst to his own interest and wanting to abolish fears of sexuality, Kinsey begins his research after some time. He marries Clara (Laura Linney) and gathers a selection of colleagues and students to take part in various aspects of sexual research.

The research, based on the premise that sex is a physical, animalistic function, begins to spiral out of control as wife-swapping and homosexual encounters become the norm. Kinsey’s research techniques are called into question by the general public, who, despite having bought record numbers of his first book, are very quickly turning on Kinsey’s research methods. The McCarthy Era soon begins in America and leads Kinsey’s major funding source, The Rockefeller Foundation, to drop its funding for subsequent works. This, plus the moral collapse of Kinsey’s research techniques and colleagues, leads him to experience health problems and a diminishment in his overall importance as a researcher. Kinsey, for a time, becomes a bit of a joke and a pariah, giving small lectures to people that atypically walk out on. Kinsey, partly as a result of the Cold War politics of the time, is seen as eroding American family values and he is outcast from getting more funding for his book from even private corporations.

The realities, including the ups and downs, of Kinsey’s life and work are put on display with this film. Neeson does a wonderful job of showing us the multiple sides of Alfred Kinsey without stealing the show or overacting the part. Instead, his modest portrayal is a gift and allows his subject to speak for himself effectively. Laura Linney and other members of the supporting cast are excellent, too, and flesh out the story without chewing the scenery and without becoming a spectacle in themselves. Kinsey gives us the perfect amounts of hot and cold, in terms of performances, to guide this biographical film along without pushing too much. Director Condon knows the subject matter well enough to push easily and allow Kinsey’s work and life to speak for itself.

There are various comical moments in the film, too, most of which center around society’s rather absurd ideas of sexuality at the time. Kinsey becomes seen as a liberator of ridiculous sexual mores and as someone that allows homosexuality and other sexual aspects to be pushed out into the open. He experiences the full weight of this responsibility, however, when he interviews a sexual deviant with a taste for children. This causes Kinsey and his colleague (Chris O’Donnell) to invoke a certain degree of standards for the first time in the case, all still without “judging” this deviant too obviously.

Kinsey is a film about exploration and about celebrating life and relationships. Neeson brings us Kinsey in a realistic and exciting way, presenting the researcher as a man who will not back down from his cause, who makes mistakes, who has pain in his life, who has morals despite attempts to deny them as “societal conventions”, and who struggles with the very basics of his own research at times. Condon directs the film elegantly, too, allowing scenes to unfold naturally and standing by as an observer to a very interesting life without forcing issues or being too obscene. The research in the film is treated as research and it is cold and unflattering, adding to the realism of the direction. Kinsey, on the whole, should be treated the same way and observed with an open mind to discover what sorts of enlightening things we might learn about the subject and, more importantly, ourselves.

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