What's an Oscar Flashback (tm)? Read here:
Next on my Netflix queue was Kinsey, for which Laura Linney was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (film year, 2004; awarding year, 2005). The other nominees for Best Supporting Actress in this category were:
The Aviator - Cate Blanchett (Winner)
Closer - Natalie Portman
Hotel Rwanda - Sophie Okonedo
Sideways - Virginia Madsen
This movie also represents the fourth of five LGBT-themed Oscar movies at the top of my Netflix queue (thanks to my stream of consciousness queuing). Just in case you were keeping track.
It's been at least a week since I've seen this film, but for some reason (well, for good reason), I remember it distinctly. After all, it's a movie about sex! Well, it's actually a movie about Alfred Kinsey, the first and most renowned scientific researcher of sex and sexuality in humans, but since the topic is what it is, there was quite a bit of talk about sex without, you know, venturing into pornographic territory. It's hard to forget a film like that.
Kinsey is, naturally, a biopic. Liam Neeson plays the title character and real-life scientist, and the film follows Kinsey from childhood with his strict, religious, and authoritarian father (John Lithgow), who wanted him to become an engineer and was sorely disappointed when Al chose insects and entomology, to his death. His primary research centered on the study of a specific genus of wasp, and he was very gifted, attracting the attention of equally gifted student Clara (Linney). His scientific attentions began to shift to the behavior patterns of human sexuality, partially borne out of his and Clara's own awkward courtship and ensuing difficulty in engaging in post-wedding sexual intercourse. His interest led him to postulate that most "evidence" of such behavior patterns was rooted in conjecture rather than research and documentation, and so, he devised a plan to poll research subjects and write a definitive treatise on the subject. Beginning with a "marriage" course at Indiana University, where sex was discussed openly, Kinsey began a series of frank interviews with persons of all types, aided by research assistants played by Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, and Timothy Hutton. He also devised the now renowned Kinsey scale of sexuality and eventually published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which was greeted with controversy, since it revealed that male sexual experiences were wider and more varied than expected, including practices contemporarily considered dangerous or perverted in the 40s, such as pre-marital sex and masturbation. When Kinsey attempted to publish a book with a female equivalent, his work was met with greater opposition. In the meantime, his own home life was complicated by his often frank and uncompromised discussion of sex and sexualtiy, his bisexual relationship with his assistant (Saarsgard), and his often dangerous yen to experiment sexually.
Kinsey was a fascinating film in many ways. Written and directed by Bill Condon, who has many film credits to his name (including Gods and Monsters as director and Chicago as screenwriter), the film is a fairly comprehensive discussion of Kinsey and his work. Unfortunately, because his work was so complicated and so controversial, two hours of film did not leave enough room to fully flush out dynamics that were briefly touched upon but never given full treatment or resolution and that, frequently, detracted from the film's focus.
For example, the film did well to portray some of the difficulties Kinsey and wife Clara had navigating open sexual waters, but, while Laura Linney was given scenes in which to display some of her sincerest emotional reactions, oftentimes, the end result of their troubles was never shown or was complicated by other complications in their lives that were never completely flushed out. There was also narrative time devoted to the struggles Kinsey's assistants had with open sexuality, particularly as they themselves aimed to commit to stable, heterosexual relationships, but these detours often seemed scattered. In many ways, there was too much going on all at once to make heads or tails of what the focus of the film ought to be, even as the focus should clearly have been Kinsey's life in the wake of his chosen life's work.
That's not to say that the film itself wasn't a decent exploration of Kinsey and a decent biopic in and of itself. When the focus was more streamlined to connect Kinsey's work to the public response (including a subtly hilarious turn by Tim Curry as a university colleague opposed to Kinsey's teachings), the film was at its strongest. When the film juxtaposed Kinsey's arguably courageous choice of study against his austere father's traditionalist tendencies, the film was at its strongest. The film seemed to lose itself otherwise in the quagmire of emotions connected to everyone associated with Kinsey, which were all valid points of context for Kinsey's work and should have been included, even as their cohesion eroded throughout the film. His family was a logical focal nucleus, but even his children's struggles to cope with having such an unusual father were given only a scene's worth of treatment without re-addressing them later in the film.
Is this broad exploration into Kinsey's associates and relations a flaw in the film, since the subject of Kinsey's work was such a broad and emotional topic that eventually, in some ways, spiralled out of control for the man who would pioneer these studies? Yes, in so far as such exploration bogged the film down, particularly as the film detoured into the personal lives of the assistants and their lovers or partners. Still, the performances were excellent and totally believable by every single cast member, and this film was engaging from beginning to end. Particularly impressive was Mr. Neeson, who tends to have a commanding presence in most of his films and who inhabits his characters (and he's played many real-life historical figures) with true passion and carefully researched skill and nuance. Linney is always good, but as I've officially seen all of the nominees in this category except for Sideways, at this juncture, I can safely say that Cate Blanchett deserved the award that year (and was a shoo-in at the time) for nailing a spot-on, truly eerie performance as Katharine Hepburn in the Aviator, even if I enjoyed this film far more than that one (for the record, The Aviator is my least favorite Scorsese film to date).
I digress. Kinsey took on a heady (no pun intended) topic and, despite some narrative convolution, was actually an interesting and fascinating portrait of an interesting and fascinating man. Thus, in patented ratings-scale world, I believe it is fair to rate Kinsey a 7.5, for being between shaky/entertaining and having minor flaws but being very good. As for the test, I can't really see myself watching it repeatedly (and, therefore, it does not pass). It's an interesting film, but it's not the kind of film you can pull out for a giggle, unless you're truly a disciple of the man it's discussing. Still, as the only known film to broach this particular biography, I would recommend Kinsey, for the film's bravado and for the bravado of the inspiration behind it.