Customer Reviews

Kinsey

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

KINSEY is the story of Alfred Kinsey, here played by Liam Neeson, the author of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948) and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953), both of which raised, um, eyebrows.

As the film succinctly shows, Alfred, the son of a puritanical minister that went so far as to rail against zippers for giving idle hands easy access to occasions for sin, grew up to be a zoologist whose obsession with collecting and studying the gall wasp gained him a measure of obscurity. However, after marrying Clara McMillen (Laura Linney), with whom he achieved sexual liberation after sorting out a few physical impediments with the help of a knowledgeable physician, Kinsey achieved local notoriety at Indiana University by teaching an enlightened and graphic sex education course for students and staff. It was there that he first utilized questionnaires to elicit personal sexual histories, the methodology, administered by trained interviewers, that he later used in the thousands across the nation to build the database for his two books. In KINSEY, we also see depicted the Kinsey couple's unconventional sexual relationship, as well as those of Alfred's cadre of interviewers and their wives. Hugh Hefner would've been proud to have the investigative team over to his mansion for a frolic.

Insofar as it goes, KINSEY appears to give a reasonably accurate summary of the sex researcher's bio. I base this conclusion on my own sketchy knowledge of the subject, hastily gleaned from a website. The film does skip over a couple of minor points. It doesn't share that Alfred was an atheist who thought Judeo-Christian sexual ethics repressive. It also seamlessly transitions from Kinsey's sex-ed class at IU into his larger national study without revealing that he was replaced as the class instructor because his lecture content was too racy for the times. In any case, Neeson's performance is certainly worth an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and perhaps Linney for Best Actress also.

Perhaps hoping to be on the cutting edge of sexual expression, as were Kinsey's two books, KINSEY has two brief shots of full-frontal male nudity (involving supporting actor Peter Sarsgaard), something not often seen in American theatres in mainstream releases. Kinsey would be pleased.

KINSEY is a finely crafted, entertaining, and instructive look at a simpler time and place before AIDS and HIV became parts of the sexual equation.

I was prepared to have my negative feelings about Kinsey confirmed in this movie. I'd heard that he took a cold accounting approach to his sex studies, that he had basically been a taxonomist/entomologist who had transferred his skills at categorizing and dissecting insects (specifically gall wasps) to tallying human behavior. But this movie introduced me to someone a lot more sympathetic, innocent, and complicated than that. It introduced me to someone never quite in on the joke.

The film does inform viewers about Kinsey's working methods and the dynamics of his relationship with the graduate students he recruited to help with the burgeoning workload as he sought to interview a huge cross-section of the American population about their sexual habits and preferences. It shows how he attempted to train his associates in impassive objectivity, so as not to frighten any of their interview subjects into falsifications.

I would like to have learned more about how Kinsey translated the sometimes almost stream-of-consciousness reflections he elicited from study subjects (including one particularly repulsive, absolutely unrepentant pedophile) - into the crisp numeric tallies on his sheets of paper. But perhaps such details of his study are best left to documentaries about his life.

This movie wasn't meant to be a documentary. It was meant to provide some emotional insight into the man himself. The heart of the movie is his relationship with his wife, and the heart of that relationship is Laura Linney's portrayal of Clara. They had an unconventional romance from the start. One of the most touching scenes shows Kinsey celebrating Clara by giving her a clumpy pair of walking shoes. She greets these with sincere pleasure. She shines in anticipation of all the places they can tramp together, with her in such a "sensible" pair of shoes.

The movie proceeds to take us through some of the ups and downs of their open marriage. Kinsey is a pioneer in equality, wondering why his wife isn't getting as much pleasure out of their sexual relationship as he is - a question few husbands in that era would even think to ask. He sets out to investigate the process of pleasure scientifically and to set things right. As their marriage matures, Kinsey has his affairs - with both men and women. Then when Clara decides she might like to try an outside adventure on her own - the play of subtle emotions on the actors' faces tells a story in itself.

Those shoes come to represent their relationship throughout their lives - through their accommodations with each other, through their estrangements, through their essential affection for each other. In the end, as in the beginning, they enjoy their explorations together, in sensible shoes.

This movie will take you in unexpected directions.

When "Kinsey" was released, I entered the theater eagerly, expecting a detailed and thorough look at the man and his work; I left the theater disappointed, and that disappointment grew the more I thought back on the film. "Kinsey" does indeed provide a detailed and thorough look at Alfred Kinsey, but the movie's treatment of his work and its impact is very narrow. The filmmakers never quite get to the really interesting questions.

"Kinsey" tells the story of Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), author of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male." The film follows Kinsey's life from his early years as a zoologist and his marriage to his wife Clara (Laura Linney), through his groundbreaking work in the study of human sexuality and the effects of and reactions to that work.

As a straight bio-pic, "Kinsey" does a good job. However, it is hard to miss the fact that the implications of his work are largely ignored, and when the subject is raised, the movie quickly glosses it over. For instance, Kinsey appears to argue that sex and emotion can and should be thought of as unrelated (or at least not necessarily related), and he follows this principle in his own life. In the larger scale, this sentiment figured largely in the American sexual revolution, and continues to a vital part of current attitudes towards sex. Yet this aspect of Kinsey's work is addressed for only the briefest of moments. At one point, Clara--initially upset by the notion that sex and love can be divorced from one another--asks Kinsey, "But what about love?" This is by far the most compelling question the movie asks, yet the plot quickly moves past it, leaving it as merely a device to further the development of Kinsey and Clara's relationship.

The implications of Kinsey's work are not entirely ignored by the movie, and the filmmakers do a good job of addressing the impact on homosexuality and its perception. But ultimately, "Kinsey" deeply disappointed me. Although Kinsey's studies furthered our understanding of human sexuality, the subject still remains quite mysterious, and the filmmakers squandered a wonderful chance to probe its depths.

In 1938 Alfred Kinsey, a young Harvard-trained zoologist whose speciality was the gall wasp, took over a course on "marriage" at Indiana University and, based upon his relentless curiosity and unapologetically scientific treatment of the subject, turned the class into something akin to sexology. He subsequently published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), based upon 18,000 sexual histories he and his staff collected. For the first time ever, sex was scientifically-situated. This biographical dramatization reminded me of Ray, in the sense of an overwhelming human force who grappled with a perennial subject and in the process shaped American culture. The main message of the film, if it has one, seems to be that repression and taboo melt in the light of frankness and tolerance of difference, no matter how quirky: "We are the recorders and reporters of facts--not the judges of the behaviors we describe," insisted Kinsey. But the film is careful to show in some deeply painful moments like pedophilia, sex encouraged among staff members, Kinsey's bi-sexual experimentation, and broken marriages that human sexuality is far more, and more complex, than the mere scientific documentation of its parts. Fidelity, intimacy, integrity and love define sexuality as much as our habits. Kinsey died in 1956 at the age of 62, although the Kinsey Institute continues today.

Recent years have seen a stellar crop of biopics coming out of Hollywood. From "Ray" to "Walk the Line" to "Capote" (just to name a few), we have been treated to great actors and writers telling the stories of fascinating people. "Kinsey" does not quite rise to that level, but is a solid movie in its own right and features two stellar performances in Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.

Neeson, one of my favorite actors, plays against type as the titular Alfred Kinsey. It is odd to see Neeson play, without putting too fine a point on it, a complete and utter nerd. Neeson has conveyed intelligence before, but it was always a dashing intelligence. Here, Neeson plays the rooster-haired taxonomist with a single-minded zeal for scientific discovery but only rare outbursts of genuine human emotion. Kinsey is as close as a human being has come to our favorite Vulcan, Mr. Spock - even his ears are kinda pointy.

Kinsey meets his soulmate in his student, Clara "Mac" McMillen, who Linney plays with infinite patience, a lot of intelligence, but with quite a bit more emotion than her husband. Perhaps the only bad choice Linney made in the entire movie is to wear colored contact lenses that made her eyes almost completely black, masking her baby blues. Other than that, Linney is flawless.

The movie goes to great lengths to show how important Kinsey was to American culture. The movie's thesis - and it seems to be largely correct - is that America's sexual education came not from self-styled promoters like Hugh Hefner, but from the academic Kinsey and the University of Indiana. Shocked that his university students are sexual illiterate, Kinsey convinces a reluctant university president, played by Oliver Platt, to allow Kinsey to teach a "sex course." From this foundation, Kinsey develops a little faculty of his own and goes on to publish two landmark books about sex and the American male and female. Initially hailed as a hero after the publishing of his book on men, Kinsey is ostracized after publishing his book on women and is dubbed a corrupter of America's youth by the prudes who dominate American culture.

So, why the three-star review? Maybe I've just seen too many movies, but the scenes that deal with the depths of America's sexual puritanism seem to have been done before. Attacking American sexual mores, circa 1950, is like shooting fish in a barrel - it's just too easy. We've heard a thousand times the stupid theories of the day, from high heels causing sterility to pregancy being caused by heavy petting. The pioneers of sexual freedom are always shown to be reasonable, and the opponents are always the ridiculous prudes and their unfortunate victims.

It was perhaps inspired casting to put John Lithgow in the role of Kinsey's hyper-repressed-and-restrictive father. It was Lithgow, after all, who played the hyper-restrictive father in "Footloose." While we eventually see old Dad as a sympathetic character, "Kinsey" also breaks down the characters into prudes=bad, Kinseyans=good.

There is a bit of a struggle toward the end of the movie about the consequences of sexual liberation as Kinsey's staff -- who engage in more than a bit of "free love" -- get a little miffed at each other. But in general, the movie's dichotomy remains its trademark.

This isn't to say that "Kinsey" is a bad film, and that it's perspective is not valid. It's just that this theme is something that I, as a teenager in the 1980's, have heard countless times before.

The movie also squanders a couple of prime opportunities. Oliver Platt is given remarkably little to do as the university president, and Tim Curry even less as a university "hygiene professor" whose lectures on sexual conduct border on the criminal. These two outrageous actors could have been used to astounding effect in a movie about sexual repression and freedom, and yet may as well not have been used at all other than to build up and dash our hopes.

As far as it goes, "Kinsey" is a solid, well-made movie. But, aside from some pitch-perfect acting by Neeson and Linney, there is nothing about "Kinsey" that separates it from the conventional biopic.

The name of Alfred Kinsey conjures up many different kinds of images and preconceived notions, many of which don't fit the reality of his research and situation. The Kinsey Institute, located on the campus of my undergraduate university in Indiana, is known the world over as a research centre devoted to looking at sex in humans. This can still be a controversial topic, but certainly for middle America during the middle of the twentieth century - this was the protestant 'Bible Belt', and sex was not a topic of proper conversation among educated people.

Written and directed by Bill Condon, this film recounts the tale of Kinsey's professional career, from his early days as a Harvard researcher looking at gall wasps through his career at Indiana University, first as a biologist, and then as director of the research project and institute that today bears his name.

Kinsey is a complex character - perhaps the only way he could get away with his study in the environment of mid-century America was that he was the quintessential academic, in dress, demeanor, and attitude. His process of research, be it on gall wasps or on human subjects, was exactingly clinical. The essence of this devotion and adherence to objective procedure is captured in the film (both in terms of wasps and in terms of people).

One exchange between Kinsey and his fellow researcher Clyde Martin illustrates the point:
Alfred Kinsey: 'The doctors say my heart sounds like a cement mixer.'
Clyde Martin: 'At least they found one.'

Kinsey was aided by his wife, the free-thinking graduate student Clara McMillan. While a biology professor, Kinsey's openness made him a magnet for students to seek him out; sometimes their questions were regarding personal problems. When Kinsey sought out guidance in clinical research, he was frustrated to find there was none, even in medical literature, to help guide him in his counseling for the students. This inspired Kinsey to research, and even to offer classes dealing with the subject (these human sexuality classes are still offered at Indiana University, as well as other universities across the country).

Kinsey's work derived from interviews with literally thousands of subjects, data from whom was collected and compiled, and finally distilled into a major report, 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male', published in 1948. While Kinsey had assured the university and those funding his research that his report would be objective and descriptive rather than prescriptive, it was perhaps inevitable that Kinsey would climb down from this pedestal and make the statement that, based on the observable evidence, there is a much wider range to what constitutes 'being normal' than was previously held (particularly in polite, post-Victorian-morality society). This set off a firestorm of controversy the engulfed his research at the same time as the 'red scare' was becoming a prominent issue in the United States.

Kinsey's follow-up volume on human sexuality in females was seen as an attack on family values and 'the American way', and Kinsey's faith in his own processes and work was tested as his health began to falter at the same time. However, the groundwork had been laid, and the field continued to grow and flourish through the rest of the century, both through Kinsey's own institute as well as others founded later.

Condon's direction and writing is very clever, edging between documentary form at times and dramatic play at others. It includes a bit of irony in one exchange:
Reporter: 'Any plans on a Hollywood picture based on the book?'
Alfred Kinsey: 'I can't think of anything more pointless.'

Condon interviewed many of Kinsey's colleagues prior to writing, in essence using Kinsey's own technique. Liam Neeson plays the title role well, with clinical detachment and academic concern held in balance with his obvious passion for his subject. Laura Linney turns in a great performance as Clara; the three other roles of note include Tim Curry as the jealous faculty colleague, Peter Sarsgaard as close research colleague Clyde Martin (who lets his own personal involvement with both Kinsey and his wife create a bit of trouble for the group), and Oliver Platt, who plays the late, great Herman Wells, the visionary leader of Indiana University who hid his own sexual secrets fairly well through his career (for a gay man to be successful in Indiana during that time was a remarkable feat; that one should embrace controversies such as Kinsey, which was courting disaster, was astonishing).

The style of the film is very true to the mid-century; sets, costumes, vehicles, manners - all of these things combine to give a very good depiction of the time and place. This in many ways blunts the subject, but in other ways reinforces it - sexuality is not the domain just of the young, or just of the modern, or just of anything, but can be found in every time and place, including the more antiseptic and conservative of locations. Perhaps this is also part of Condon's point with the film, being produced at a time of resurgent conservatism in North America.

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DVD Extras
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There is a single-disc and double disc version available. The single disc has a commentary track by Bill Condon, subtitles available, and options for wide-screen or full-screen viewing.

The double-disc version includes all of the above, plus Spanish and French audio tracks, featurettes including a brief documentary on the Kinsey Report, twenty deleted scenes, an interactive sex questionnaire, and an overview of sex education at the Kinsey Institute.

Also, be sure and listen in the film for Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of 'Too Darn Hot', a Cole Porter song that has the lyric, 'According to the Kinsey Report...'

Part of the Kinsey Report:
Wardell Pomeroy: How old were you when you first engaged in sexual activity with a partner?
Research Subject: 14.
Wardell Pomeroy: How?
Research Subject: With horse.
[pause] Wardell Pomeroy: How often were you having intercourse with animals at age 14?
[stunned] Research Subject: It's true. I f***ed a pony. You are genius, how did you know?
Wardell Pomeroy: You just said you had
[pause]
Wardell Pomeroy: sex with horse.
Research Subject: Nooo... Whores, not horse, *****.

Alfred Kinsey interviewed hundreds of thousands of people in his career to unveil his 1948's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and its sequel, 1953's Sexual Behavior in the Human. He was THE authority on the subject of sex, and of course, he had quite an audience. Who doesn't want to know all about sex?

Alfred Kinsey as played brilliantly by Liam Neeson, started his professional life as a zoologist. He met a student, Clara, Laura Linney, and even though Alfred was a bumbling nerd, she married him. Alfred was the son of a tyrannical religious minister, and he could never live up to his father's hopes. Yes, Alfred had hang-ups of his own.. Along the way, in his career, he was asked to teach a class on sex, and he looked for research to bring to his class.. Of course, there was none. So, Alfred started surveying his classes and everyone he knew. This lead to his textbook, which led to censure and outcries from the religious right. Clara and his children accepted him, and his college Indiana University made him one of their own. He received research grants and went out of his way to garner monies for his research. All of us, who are sexually active, need to thank Alfred Kinsey and has wife Clara. Where would we be with out his work and study?

"Kinsey" was directed by Bill Condon and has received multiple awards and Academy Award Nominations. Liam Neeson, in his best performance, is remarkable as Alfred. And, where Alfred got that haircut is a mystery that needs to be solved. Laura Linney as Clara, has a wonderful affinity in her relationship with Alfred. They had that magic. This is a movie to be revered, it is sexually explicit and hurrah for that! Highly Recommended, prisrob 1-7-06

The story of Alfred Kinsey and his reports on human sexuality is difficult to comprehend, but director Bill Condon does a great job trying to explain it all. While leaving a few questions unanswered, it is for the most part an excellent film with an excellent cast.

The film portrays Kinsey as an authority on sex, but there is no indication on HOW he became an expert. Suddenly he is giving sexual advice to students and the audience is left to ask how this occurred. And closely related to this enigma is why did people believe his background in biology qualified him for the psychological aspects of sexual relations? The film on occasion broaches this subject by a character asking of his qualifications, and we are led to believe that his knowledge of biology suffices...which is patently nonsensical. While sex is a biologic function, it also is a deeply-rooted emotional one; and gathering data to prove WHAT people do in bed doesn't help explain WHY people do the things they do in bed.

The film, however, brilliantly explores the fact that society became conditioned to believe that sex for any purpose other than reproduction was prurient. Kinsey proved the hypocrisy of American society by showing that a great percentage of Americans...both male and female...were doing all of the things society wasn't supposed to discuss.

Conversely, the film shows the inherent problem of relegating sex exclusively to its biology and ignoring the psychology of it by portraying Kinsey's researchers as being immune to the privacy of sex. They boorishly discuss sexual acts in public and (even more boorishly), discuss with others the intimate details of their own sex lives, often with their wives present.

The film (being a product of the 21st century) portrays those who disagreed with Kinsey as puritanical prudes. This is an unfair judgement. Many people found Kinsey's means of gathering data faulty, expecially when that data dealt with pedophiles. Also, many believed his credentials did not qualify him for such research.

It makes for an excellent story despite the several flaws. For those weak of stomach on sexual matters, you might want to pass this one up for a Disney flick.

Not since the Woody Allen comedy, "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask", has there been a mainstream big budget Hollywood extravaganza so dedicated to sexual talk, action and animation.

This movie, about one of the world's most famous sexual researchers, includes graphic talk about sex in every scene along with scenes of (thankfully not too graphic!) straight sex, masturbation, homosexuality & cheating married partners. There's also general discussion about bestiality and admissions of participation in same. Sound like your cup of tea?

Liam Neeson plays the obsessed researcher, the product of a repressed and unyielding household who, like his father -- played very well by John Lithgow -- has no capability to see, understand or accept behavior beyond his personal frame of reference.

While the biopic concentrates on the way Kinsey moved from biology to sexual researched and the way his work changed the world, it is his intolerance that most characterizes Kinsey in the film. Neeson, who is something of a johnny one note as an actor, is exceptionally well suited to play the role this way.

The movie industry loved this flick and, to enusre it got some notoriety, the Motion Picture Academy nominated Laura Linney -- who played Mrs. Kinsey -- for a best actress award. Linney was fine in her role but I thought she was better and more meaningful in Showtime's made-for-cable flick "Wild Iris", where she received no press or awards.

Bill Condon wrote the script and directed the film, which was largely shot at New York's Columbia University, a time zone and far cry from the Indiana University campus where most of the action takes place. The film is interesting and involving throughout although it could have been made whole by concluding differently than it did, I think.

This is a fine biopic on the pioneering sex researcher of our time. It focuses mainly on Kinsey's efforts to produce his two seminal studies "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948) and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953). It also gives brief glimpses as to why he chose this particular career path. Kinsey was born into a strict Methodist family with a Preacher for a father and the expectation that he himself would follow in the same footsteps. Kinsey spurned his father's ambitions for him and proceeded to study the biological sciences. After earning degress in biology, psychology and finally entomology, he took up an apparently harmless pursuit - the study of gall wasps, before assuming a research/teaching post at Indiana University where he was appalled when confronted with the almost laughable sexual ignorance of the undergraduates. That set him off on his groundbreaking studies on human sexuality. What he unleashed was a sexual revolution in America that outraged conservatives and set moralists on a crusade to demonise him in every way they could. How telling that this film, based on events of fifty years ago, still resonates and divides audiences today. It is a sad comment on our times that we still confront the same issues that Kinsey did over half a century ago.

Liam Neeson is excellent as the awkward, wooden, diffident, even brusque Kinsey who nonetheless had the ability to put total strangers at ease and have them openly volunteer intimate secrets to him. Laura Linney is equally good as his wife who with her warmth and obvious love for the gangly older man becomes the emotional foil for the movie. Although it delves into a topic that can easily descend into salaciousness, it does not. Neither is it a dry biography. It is engaging throughout due to the general excellence of the combined cast. Don't miss the two minute long cameo near the end by Lynn Redgrave where she gives a quiet yet stunning performance as a study-participant who thanks a dejected Kinsey for saving her life. In his accompanying director's commentary, Bill Condon hails her performance as a masterclass in acting. Towards the end, one of his proteges, Clyde Martin asks Kinsey where love figures in all this obsession with sex, and Kinsey replies that as love cannot be measured or quantified, it is something that science cannot in the end explain. This segues into the lovely final sequence, a poetic evocation and affirmation of love, with the elderly couple walking off amongst the majestic redwoods of California's Muir Wood. It holds a double meaning for viewers who know that Kinsey visited the Muir Wood just before his death.

If you intend buying this, I would recommend getting the 2-disc Special Edition. The only reason to buy the standard edition would be if you want to watch it in fullscreen pan & scan format. And this movie is definitely not meant to be viewed in pan & scan. The film with its lovely cinematography by Frederick Elmes, has been given an excellent transfer to DVD in its original 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Picture quality is very good, the print is clean and sharp. Black levels are just right. Audio is in DTS 5.1 and Dolby 5.1 with alternate French and Spanish tracks in Dolby 2.0. As this is a dialogue driven movie, the surround audio benefits mainly the music score which blossoms with an understated, quiet majesty.

Extras begin with an excellent director's commentary on the first disc. On the second disc, the bulk of the material is the 1hr 23min long documentary, "The Kinsey Report: Sex On Film" which could have benefited from some judicious trimming but gives a fairly good background to the making of the film as well as the controversy that Kinsey stirred fifty years ago and the angst that he still engenders today. It details the efforts by outraged moralists to get the film stopped just as fifty years ago they tried to get his studies dropped. It debunks the "information" put forth by Kinsey opponents who have labelled him everything from a Nazi to a pedophile. It mentions Dr Judith Reisman (PhD in Communications) of RSVPAmerica (Restoring Social Virtue & Purity to America) who has become a hero of the Right in her quest to demolish Kinsey and his findings. Actually there is more inflammatory material here in the documentary than in the main feature. There is an accompanying 6 minute tour of the Sex-Ed. collection at the Kinsey Intitute. There are 20 deleted scenes with optional director's commentary, including the cheaper alternate ending (before they got a larger budget) which closes with the elderly Kinseys sitting on a bench in New York's Gramercy Park instead of walking off through the majestic redwood forests of California. All the interview sequences which were stripped from the middle of the movie are found here. Among the deleted scenes is a very good one which shows Kinsey's death, just after the millionaire, Huntington Hartford, turns down his plea for financial aid, and how his three proteges subsequently continue his work, beginning with a publicity interview given to the New York Times. There is a three minute long gag reel which is quite funny. There are three theatrical trailers. And there is an Interactive Sex Questionnaire, titled "Turning On, Turning Off" - "How easily are you aroused, how easily inhibited?" You get the chance to assess how easily aroused or inhibited you are based on the Kinsey Institute's latest "Dual Control Model of Sexual Response". After answering 45 questions, it places your personal score on a distribution curve of other prior survey participants. Not particularly useful but a pretty fun gimmick nonetheless. At just a few dollars more than the standard version, the Special Edition would be the preferred choice but morality crusaders should stand well clear.