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January 18, 2005

Kinsey

Kinsey is exactly the reason why I really dislike biopics, and why I have no desire to see Ray or Beyond the Sea or any other biopics coming along anytime soon. In a nutshell: the problem with biopics is that the question comes along: why not make a documentary? Why are we making a narrative feature film about someone's life? The negatives are obvious: the version will ultimately be heavily watered down, forced into a three act structure, contain countless scenes, dialogue, and people that never existed in the person's life, and ultimately make real life seem like the movies - which it clearly isn't.

What do we gain? Two things: 1) whoever really loves the person in question enough to make a movie gets his basic message distributed to the masses, who are then inspired for two hours before they hit McDonalds, and 2) there's room for a bunch of monologues by people who are ahead of their time given to people far behind the times. Again, I say why not make a documentary? As a writer, why stuck to facts that you still go out of your way to stretch? Ultimately, the worst thing for me is that it's almsot crucial that everone in the audience constantly be thinking: "i can't believe this happened!" And this is what bugs me most.

It didn't happen - at least, not in the way it's being presented.

So there's my bias, it's on the table, and it's amazing how Kinsey was exactly as I predicted it would be. We see a bunch of scenes that never happened in sexologist Brock Kinsey's life, his rise to fame, his downfall, and finally, his come uppance. The End. Really not much to say about the plot anymore than I could describe a riveting movie about the Titanic sinking (sans a love story) because we all know it. It's more on the performances, writing, and cinematography that everything matters.

And in that department, only Liam Neeson really shines, because he really inhabits the character. At times, I think his motivation gets past him a bit, and he becomes a bit to insisting about the scientific legitimacy of his work when as an audience member, you are wondering a tad. The rest of the cast falls short for one of two reasons. On the one hand, there are the people against Kinsey due to their Puritanical views, such as a professor played by Tim Curry or Kinsey's preacher/father, John Lithgow. In these cases, it is PAINFULLY obvious that the actors do not fully understand who their characters could hold their beliefs, and thus come off as charicatures of Bible thumpers and stodgy classical educators. Meanwhile, those on Kinsey's side also lack motivation, such as his wife, Laura Linney, who I think is often faking her understanding of why her character would be with Kinsey. Same goes for Peter Sarsgaard and the rest of his assistants, who begin to sleep with each other and stuff gets weird.

In the end, the bad guys are too weak and cliched, and the good guys too unbelievable due to lack of motivation. Once in a while, Kinsey's character fully shines through, but really, this is Bill Condon on a soap box using a dumbed down means to deliver his message to the masses. Good? Bad? All I know is that if you think he and his wife went around looking at trees and talking about their roots, you're nuts.

I'm giving it 2.5 stars (out of four) - tho if you push me, i MIGHT jack it up to 3 for over-all competence.

Posted by nick at January 18, 2005 12:31 AM

Comments

Posted by: Justin Pfister at January 21, 2005 05:58 PM