Kinsey
Director: Bill Condon
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 1.5
There is lots of conservative baiting in this standard biopic about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, who was raised in a strict, religious home but became more in-touch with his own sexuality while teaching in Indiana. The cast is excellent - Liam Neeson especially, though Peter Sarsgaard is impressive as Neeson's assistant and lover - although the screenplay lets them down, especially in the last third when Condon delves into Kinsey's father's sexual punishment and the good doctor melodramatically ends up in the hospital because of drug addiction. The picture also dodges some of the less populace-friendly aspects of Kinsey's research, even going so far to include a scene with a man who claims to have had sex with hundreds of animals, his father and countless children. It's a film trying hard to appease its liberal audience and lecture everyone else.
