One of the best films of 2004, Kinsey pays tribute to the flawed but honorable man who revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality. As played by Liam Neeson in writer-director Bill Condon's excellent film biography, Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey was so consumed by statistical measurements of human sexual activity that he almost completely overlooked the substantial role of emotions and their effect on human behavior. This made him an ideal researcher and science celebrity who revealed that sexual behaviors previously considered deviant and even harmful (homosexuality, oral sex, etc.) are in fact common and essentially normal in the realm of human experience, but whose obsession with scientific method frequently placed him at odds with his understanding wife (superbly played by Laura Linney) and research assistants. In presenting Kinsey as a driven social misfit, Condon's film gives Neeson one of his finest roles while revealing the depth of Kinsey's own humanity, and the incalculable benefit his research had on our collective sexual enlightenment. With humor, charm, and intelligence, Kinsey shines a light where darkness once prevailed. --Jeff Shannon
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Let's Talk About Sex Liam Neeson stars as Alfred Kinsey, a man driven by scientific passion and personal demons to investigate the elusive mystery of human sexuality. Laura Linney garnered a Best Actress Oscar® nomination for her compelling performance as Kinsey’s free-thinking wife. This provocative drama dares to lift the veil of shame from a society in which sex was hidden, knowledge was dangerous and talking about it was the ultimate taboo.
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Academy Award®-winning writer-director Bill Condon (GODS AND MONSTERS) turns the microscope on Alfred Kinsey in a drama that is at once a portrait of a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of the nation, and a journey into the mystery of human behavior. Liam Neeson stars as Kinsey, who in 1948 irrevocably changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Asking thousands of people about the most intimate aspects of their lives, Kinsey lifted the weight of doubt and shame from a society in which sex was hidden, and knowledge was dangerous. His work sparked one of the most intense cultural debates of the past century – a debate that rages on today.
Created by a remarkable roster of talent both in front of and behind the camera, the all-star cast of KINSEY includes Oscar® nominee Liam Neeson (SCHINDLER’S LIST), Oscar-nominated Laura Linney (YOU CAN COUNT ON ME), Golden Globe® nominee Chris O’Donnell (SCENT OF A WOMAN), Golden Globe-nominated Peter Sarsgaard (SHATTERED GLASS), Oscar winner Timothy Hutton (ORDINARY PEOPLE), Oscar nominee John Lithgow (TERMS OF ENDEARMENT), Emmy®-nominated Tim Curry ("Tales from the Crypt"), Emmy nominee Oliver Platt ("The West Wing") and National Board of Review Winner Dylan Baker (HAPPINESS).
The behind-the-scenes team on KINSEY includes Director of Photography Frederick Elmes, who has shot many of acclaimed director Ang Lee’s films including THE HULK and THE ICE STORM, and David Lynch’s films including BLUE VELVET, for which he received numerous awards including the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography, and WILD AT HEART, which won the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or and an Independent Spirit Award. Production Designer Richard Sherman re-joins Condon following their collaboration on GODS AND MONSTERS, as well as several other films. Editor Virginia Katz rejoins Condon for a seventh time, following her work on GODS AND MONSTERS and CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH.
KINSEY is a Fox Searchlight and Qwerty Films presentation in association with Myriad Pictures of a N1 European Film Produktions-GmbH + CO.KG and Pretty Pictures production. Gail Mutrux (NURSE BETTY, DONNIE BRASCO) produces and executive producers are Michael Kuhn (THE ORDER, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) of Qwerty Films, Oscar-winning writer/director Francis Ford Coppola (THE GODFATHER series, PATTON) and Bobby Rock (JEEPERS CREEPERS II, EVE’S BAYOU) of American Zoetrope, and Kirk D’Amico (TRAUMA, THE GOOD GIRL) of Myriad.
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Using the technique of his own famous sex interviews, KINSEY (Liam Neeson) recounts the scientist’s extraordinary journey from obscurity to global fame. Alfred Kinsey grows up the son of an engineering teacher and occasional Sunday school preacher (John Lithgow). Rebelling against the rigid piety of his home life, and drawn to the world of the senses, Kinsey becomes a Harvard-educated zoologist specializing in the study of gall wasps.
After being hired to teach biology at Indiana University, Kinsey meets and marries a witty, free-thinking female student, Clara McMillen (Laura Linney). In the course of his teaching he discovers an astonishing dearth of scientific data on sexual behavior. When students seek him out for advice about sexual concerns and problems, he realizes that no one has done the clinical research that would yield reliable answers to their questions.
Inspired to explore the emotionally charged subject of sex from a strictly scientific point of view, Kinsey recruits a team of researchers, including Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard), Wardell Pomeroy (Chris O’Donnell) and Paul Gebhard (Timothy Hutton). Over time they refine an interviewing technique which helps people to break through shame, fear, and guilt and speak freely about their sexual histories. Kinsey also attempts to create an open sexual environment among the team and their wives, encouraging them to ‘swing’ years before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
When Kinsey publishes his Male study in 1948, the press compares the impact to that of the atom bomb. Soon Kinsey graces the cover of every major publication; he becomes the subject of songs and cartoons, editorials and sermons. But as the country enters the more paranoid Cold War era of the 1950s, Kinsey’s follow-up study on women is seen as an attack on basic American values. The ensuing outrage and scorn causes Kinsey’s benefactors to abandon him, just as his health begins to deteriorate. At the same time, the jealousies and acrimony caused by Kinsey’s attempt to create a private sexual utopia threaten to tear apart the research team and expose them to unwelcome scrutiny.
Kinsey spends his last days in a vain attempt to secure funding. He dies in 1956, fearing that his life’s work has been a failure. It is only through his contact with a final interview subject that he glimpses the positive effect he has had, and also begins to understand that the basic question of where sex ends and love begins is something that can never be completely answered by science.
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