Soon after the explosive release of his myth-shattering study, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” a reporter asked sex researcher Alfred Kinsey if he had “any plans for a motion picture.” Kinsey replied, “I can’t think of anything more pointless.” I’d love to agree. After all, considering that writer/director Bill Condon’s new biopic “Kinsey” doesn’t explore the most controversial aspects of the title character, this movie should be nothing more than a nostalgic look back at how sexually ignorant the American public once was. But it isn’t.
In Condon’s new survey of scientific lightning rod Kinsey, played to perfection by Liam Neeson, only a few scenes come off as antique: a young couple concerned that oral sex would cause sterility, for example, elicits comfortable laughs. But most of the film is all too familiar — the raging battles over sex education in public schools seem to have frozen in time since Kinsey first published his eye-opening manuscript and shook church foundations across the country.
The fact is, the Kinsey revolution only pushed the door halfway open. While the male study was a hit, the subsequent female volume struck a raw nerve; the backlash was strong enough that today, issues such as female masturbation remain as taboo as they were five decades ago. Much of the film’s humor comes from the juxtaposition of ’50s styles with ideas about sex that are still jarring today. Laura Linney masterfully embodies this contrast as Kinsey’s wife, Clara, and though she learns to enjoy the open marriage that her husband’s notions of science have pushed her into, she’d still rather discuss pot roast than politics.
At the eye of this tornado is Kinsey himself, a simple and socially awkward scientist who draws on his studies of insects (a trait he aggressively denies) to classify human behavior. Neeson, who refreshingly ages 40 years for the film, nails the role of the biologist: straightforward, gawky and mathematical. Kinsey’s failure to separate science from his personal life is his tragic flaw, one to which the audience can be safely sympathetic.
In one sense, Condon streamlines and simplifies the story much as educators did sex in the 1950s, editing out any bits deemed too uncomfortable for the audience. In a scene intended to discredit still-frequent assertions that Kinsey was sympathetic to pedophiles, Kinsey interviews the sex-addicted Kenneth Braun (William Sadler). Condon plays the audience brilliantly: Laughs turn to squirms as the predatory Braun tries to find common moral ground with Kinsey. Instead, Kinsey comes through for the nervous audience, offering the pedophile a backhanded condemnation that elicits sighs of relief. Effective? Yes. Oversimplified? Certainly.
Though Condon only prods at Kinsey the man, he uses a stunning cameo by Lynn Redgrave to drive home the power of the Kinsey legacy. The film’s final and most romantic scene is beautifully asexual and offers a surprising vision of monogamous true love. Condon opts to tie up Kinsey’s personal life neatly, but more relevant is the gaping stagnation of social progress over the last few decades that the film brings to light. While Kinsey’s work explosively kicked off the sexual revolution, Condon’s film reminds us that it is nowhere near complete.
