KINSEY

Director: Bill Condon

Stars: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, Oliver Platt

Year: 2004

Rating: R

Based on the real-life story of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Liam Neeson turns in another remarkable performance, playing the scientist/sex researcher who both encouraged and enraged the American public with his open, uninhibited studies of the sexual habits of men and women in the 1940s/1950s. In a time when talking about sex was completely taboo, Kinsey - a zoologist hired by Indian University to teach biology - begins to teach a "Marriage" course at the school that shocks everyone with its frankness in openly discussing human sexuality. From terminology seen as "indecent" to use in mixed company in the 1940s, to slideshows that include male and female genitalia at various stages of arousal, Kinsey's class not only gets notice, but also inspired him to travel cross-country for in-person interviews with men and women from all walks of life - sort of in his own quest to answer what is and isn't "normal" in the bedrooms of America.

What he learns, along with the three men he's hired to travel and conduct interviews with him (Sarsgaard, O'Donnell, and Hutton) is that "normalcy" is in the eyes of the beholder. The study opens his eyes to the fact that there may be no such thing as normal, and Kinsey soon becomes obsessed not with sex ... but with showing the conservatives of America that the only way for people to have satisfying sexual lives was by talking openly and honestly about the subject in the first place. His wife Mac (Laura Linney) supports his work - more than she could ever know, she learns - and even types his notes up for him while rearing their three children. Soon those notes become a book, "Sexual Behavior of the Human Male" (the first of a projected nine-book series) which Kinsey publishes in 1948. It becomes an instant bestseller - Kinsey an instant celebrity - and even as the letters of thanks and confession come in, the newspapers flood with stories branding Kinsey a smut-peddle and hack.

The film basically chronicles Kinsey's life, and how he came to do his studies on sexuality. A top-notch cast all deliver pitch-perfect performances, with Neeson and Linney (both nominated for Golden Globes; Linney for an Oscar) standing out ... but Sarsgaard, as student-turned-assistant to Kinsey Clyde Martin, is absolutely terrific in the film as well, equally deserving of a nomination he never got. The film is very much a "hard R," with very frank discussions and visual images regarding sexuality ...

But while that should keep your kids out of the room, Kinsey is very much a film that should be seen - maybe for how far we've come sexually since Kinsey's time, but even more so for how little progress we've made, as a country, in doing exactly what Kinsey sought deep down: understanding that what two consenting adults do, in the privacy of their own homes, is no one's business but theirs. No matter how flawed his research might have been ... how "in your face" his ideas might have been in "threatening" the morals of society ... at heart, the guy just wanted to free people from their myths and shame; to let us know what we could be sexual beings, exploring our desires ... and it was okay.

It's a powerful, controversial message - even today - in a very well-made and intriguing film worth watching. **** - Reel Awesome