In one of the most outrageously funny scenes in the new movie Kinsey, the professor Alfred Kinsey has a casual conversation with his wife and daughters about the physical nature of sex. The frankness and genuine sincerity with which Kinsey and his family approach this usually delicate subject sets the tone for the movie. Kinsey spends the majority of its running time striking a delicate balance between a frank, light-hearted approach to sex, and its possible negative repercussions. Because the film focuses almost entirely on the personal life and character of Alfred Kinsey, however, it sometimes ignores the greater social context of his work.
The film begins at the turn of the century, when a young Alfred is being raised by his overbearing and fundamentalist father, played by John Lithgow. Alfred rebels, escapes home and, after excelling in his studies, becomes a biology professor at Indiana University. There he meets his student and future wife, Clara McMillen, played by Laura Linney (Love Actually, Mystic River). Alfred, bored with his tedious study of insects and frustrated by the university’s outdated sex education, decides to teach his own course on sexual biology and behavior. Though he is met with overwhelming opposition from the university, the student interest in his course proves stronger, and he soon embarks on a wide-scale study of human sexual behavior. His collection of sexual case studies led to the publication in 1948 of “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” in 1953.
Directed by Bill Condon (The Others, Gods and Monsters), Kinsey does an excellent job of documenting the personal life of a man who took great interest in the personal lives of others. Liam Neeson easily portrays Kinsey as the earnest scientist in dogged pursuit of the truth. He and Laura Linney are very believable as a married couple, and their passion for each other and for life emphasizes the equality of their partnership; neither is subordinate to the other.
This in-depth portrait of the professor, however, marginalizes the larger societal trends that were occurring at the same time as his research. His studies were being conducted just after World War II, when America was on the brink of the sexual revolution which some even claim Kinsey himself caused. All this social upheaval is barely present in the movie, and Indiana University seems to be forever stuck in the first half of the twentieth century.
This lack of awareness for the greater social schema seems to stem from the film’s trust that greater openness and awareness of sexual behavior is undoubtedly positive. The movie pokes fun at those who take sex too seriously or try unnecessarily to repress desires, but it does not touch on the subjects of abortion, the invention of the pill or STDs. Even so, the movie does justice to the researcher himself, showing Alfred Kinsey as the groundbreaking pioneer he was. For all its flaws, Kinsey, like the scientist himself, remains unbiased and straightforward toward its subject matter.
