Condon delivers one of the better biopics of the year.
Not long ago it was believed that ‘spanking the monkey’ led to blindness – thank god one extremely curious individual decided to investigate the matter or else there would be masses of highly strung out folks. The writer/director behind 1998’s acclaimed Gods and Monsters delivers a clever biopic on the author-sexologist-researcher who managed to map, grid and correlate human sexuality and Freudian theory with his own personal experience.
Commencing with his formative years and having receiving the type of repressed education that millions of others received – the narrative examines the process of how a man mainly interested about bugs as a biologist then became the one interested in the big S and everything but the non-informative bird and the bees talk. His students become his subjects, his wife becomes his mentor and his assistant becomes a little more than just a helping hand – basically, his life was his work, and his work was his life. Bill Condon takes a more direct, intelligent approach towards his subject and subject matter – making Kinsey a drama that is a frank observation about a man who had a scientific approach to life and human nature and who educated the world, one page at a time.
Less interested in measuring up his protagonist against the common antagonistic forces used in common film narratives, Condon’s screenplay infuses the familiar husband and supporting wife team against the institution similar to A Beautiful Mind. With a narrative that is more interested in slightly ambiguous relationships and insight in how the man lived his own life instead of the inclusion of tradition melodramatics. Symbolically, Kinsey makes a case against ignorance – clever black-and-white face after face interview montages are inserted displaying how backwards of a society existed in post-WWII America, and Liam Neeson’s performance drills home the notion that many repressed individuals lack an openness to new and different ideas (a.k.a the church).
Fine performances by Laura Linney (Love Actually) and supporting player Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State) who plays of the bisexual assistant add layers of believability to their characters. Condon’s smart, sometimes whimsical script avoids cliché and is provocative without necessarily aiming to be – making this an entertaining film that doesn’t wait for the cue of an instrumental score to drum up emotion within its characters.
Fox Searchlight is capping off a very successful year, the performances will surely make Kinsey a hit among Oscar voters, while the addition of a gay-subtext and promiscuity within the text will surely make the film new fans out of groups of Right Wing Americans defending traditional family values.
