Kinsey review

It's misleading to suggest one person was single-handedly responsible for the sexual revolution, but Alfred Kinsey certainly had an influence. His controversial 1948 book 'Sexual Behavior In The Human Male' shed light on the sexual habits of America's men. The study, compiled using the results of an exhaustive and complex questionnaire, provided some surprising conclusions and changed America's attitudes towards sex, in the process it made the pioneering professor famous.

In this thoughtful biography, Liam Neeson delivers another stirring performance with his portrayal of the studious and obsessive Kinsey. As he showed with his depiction of Michael Collins and Oskar Schindler, Neeson is at his best when playing real life figures. He has the strength and presence to convincingly evoke the powerful qualities of the men he has played. Laura Linney proves equally effective as Kinsey's liberal minded wife Clara. Their enduring relationship forms the film's emotional bond and its strongest element.

Written and directed by Bill Condon, who performed the same duties on the wonderful Gods And Monsters, Kinsey is an absorbing if somewhat muted look at the life and work of Kinsey. It paints a picture of a man born of a loveless and priggish father whose extreme views on sex extended to preaching that adultery causes earthquakes. It shows how he was shackled by, and rebelled against, his repressed upbringing. How he not only documented sexual experimentation, but also participated in it, indulging in homosexual affairs and encouraging his wife and friends to break free of social restraints. And how his passions were fired more by his work - firstly with his methodical study of the gall wasp and later the sexual habits of humans - than by his relationships.

One of the more interesting observations raised by the film is that almost sixty years after Kinsey's findings helped liberate Americans from sexual subjugation, the country is rapidly heading back towards a more puritanical era, accelerated by incidents like Janet Jackson's celebrated clothing malfunction. Had he not died in 1956, it would be interesting to hear Kinsey's views on how much, and indeed how little, the world's attitudes towards sex have changed since the publication of his book.

Despite the sterling performances - including the strong supporting cast, particularly Peter Sarsgaard as Kinsey's lover and colleague - the film comes across more a documentary than a drama. It fills in all the pertinent details of the man's life, but in a very methodical and clinical fashion. Though certainly not devoid of humour, it feels weighed down by the mannered and controlling personality of its subject. Kinsey may well have been a brilliant scientist, but he was also rather boring.

Rob Andrews