reviewKINSEY

In this current political era when the "moral values" crowd seems to have its say every time a zipper
is lowered, it's nice to have a movie about plain old sex. Forthright, exploratory, free-for-all,
old-fashioned sex.

The sex in "Kinsey" really is old-fashioned. As the sexual pioneer of his day, Indiana professor
Alfred Kinsey was the first to open the nation's ears to homosexuality, pre-marital sex, and other
forms of "atypical" relations. His, and the film's, up-front manner of researching these taboos are a
slap in the face of the back-in-the-closet, they'll-never-find-out-if-you-don't-tell-them,
it's-not-true-if-it-isn't-said mentality that seems to have lingered from the 1940s through today.

Much of the man's research was in response to the devotion he had to his wife Clara, played with
perfect Victorian prim by Laura Linney. Their awkward wedding night sets the stage for the
curious doctor's dive into a world of explanations and research where none previously existed.
Thus the meticulous Kinsey -- wide-eyed and enlightened via Liam Neeson's effervescent
interpretation -- and his team of examiners set out to dispel a generation of sexual myths.

Kinsey's head assistant Tom, played cooly by a mercurial Peter Sarsgaard, helps expose other
freedoms to the doctor, bisexuality and open marriage among them. It's at this point that the
sex/love divide begins to widen, and personal feelings begin to take on different meanings. In a
terrific cameo, elderly subject Lynn Redgrave asserts that Kinsey's studies helped her express who
she was in a way never before possible, something inherently more important than the act itself.

If there's a problem with "Kinsey," it's that the film loses its early fire nearly the final third, as all the
biopic conventions -- rise, fall, validation -- unspool at a languid pace. Still, writer-director Bill
Condon never loses his ear for crisp dialogue, revealing situations, and non-pornographic sexual
frankness -- things that "Kinsey" couldn't have been successful without.

Yet the film is a success nonetheless, full of bright performances and an enthusiastic attitude
toward that favorite of American pastimes.