A Sexy Movie

One of these days, I'm going to learn my lesson and stop watching "biopics." Movies that bring you the life story of some person, no matter how compelling the person, always seem to bore. Whether its audience knowledge of how the "story" will end, or a meandering lack of story caused by overstuffing the film with minute details, I can't think of a biopic that's truly entertained me.

And yet, I recently gave another one a try: Kinsey. This is the story of the scientist who in the 1940s did pioneering research into human sexuality, and caused quite a storm with the books he published on the subject.

It was the cast that pulled me in. Liam Neeson plays the title character, and I don't think I've ever seen him be bad in anything. Laura Linney plays his wife, while his research team includes Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, and Timothy Hutton. Want more? Okay, you've got John Lithgow as his father, and other colleagues, financers, and subjects played by Tim Curry, Oliver Platt, Dylan Baker, William Sadler, John Kaskinski, and Lynn Redgrave. Not to mention numerous other unknowns who seem to be bolstered to great performances of their own by the exceptional talent surrounding them. A better cast has rarely been assembled.

There are even a handful of good scenes in the movie. There's an unconventional seduction. An awkward dinner. And possibly the most uncomfortable sex scene I've seen in a mainstream film. All a testament to the aforementioned cast.

But the movie never can transcend the biopic problem. In this case, the movie spends far too much time setting up Kinsey in his years before switching his research field. The entire first act is filled with his attempts to catalog wasps -- not really relevant to his legacy or to establishing his character, and the significance of which isn't clearly articulated in the film.

The film also doesn't really have an ending. The final act tracks the defunding of his research due to its controversial nature, but lacks any real sense of closure. The movie never says "that was it." It doesn't follow Kinsey to his death, to his failure to continue his work, to whatever... I honestly don't know what happened to the man after this. The film just reaches a certain minute count, and then just stops. No summation, no message, no nothing.

If you want to see some fine acting, the film might entertain you -- though I suspect it will bore you at stretches too. But ultimately, I rate it a C-. You might not find all these actors in one movie, but you could certainly find them all individually in better movies.