Pictured Liam Neeson at the Kinsey opening during the Chicago International Film Festival. Photo by Marie-Jo Proulx
Liam Neeson, who played Oskar Schindler, the man who saved thousands of Jews from certain death, now plays Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher who, in his own way, saved millions of gays and lesbians, too. Neeson, again playing an unlikely hero, is in top form in Kinsey, the oh-so-gay biopic from the out director/screenwriter of Gods & Monsters, Bill Condon.
'Let's talk about sex' is the tagline for the movie and it jumps right in with an early warning against it from Kinsey's father Alfred, a devout, strict minister ( played by a really nasty John Lithgow ) . 'Lust has a thousand avenues. It grows new heads everywhere,' he says, warning his young, impressionable son. Alfred Jr. must have subconsciously misheard the warning as a challenge to explore each and every one of those avenues for as the movie tells us, he and his 'inner circle' did just that.
Before that, Kinsey spent many years as an etymologist foraging in the woods for his precious rare bugs, as a college professor, husband ( to the steely Clara McMillen, played with authority by Laura Linney ) and father. After being approached by several of his married students for information on sex, he began teaching health classes that included large doses of sex education ( classes that were protested by a conservative, fellow professor, ironically played by Tim 'Sweet Transvestite' Curry ) . Realizing the paucity of available sex data, Kinsey and his sex research groupies ( led by Clara and handsome assistant Clyde, the knowing Peter Sarsgaard ) determined to pull back the repressive dark curtain drawn over American sex lives which existed before his groundbreaking studies were first published in the late 1940s.
From the first Kinsey was determined to document the entire sex spectrum and the movie shows us Neeson and Sarsgaard anxiously prowling a gay bar in Chicago trying to get someone to sit for one of Kinsey's famous in-depth interviews ( John Epperson, better known as the drag illusionist Lypsinka, plays one of the queers who turns them down. ) Harley Cross plays the unnamed gay man who finally agrees to talk to them. 'It's not that I mind being queer. I just wish other people weren't so put out by it,' he quietly says ( perfectly mouthing my thoughts about the Christian Far Right ) . Kinsey, curious and titillated after glimpsing a full frontal nude Clyde, is soon getting it on with his assistant. Later, in a hilarious scene that subverts the audience's expectations, director Condon shows us Clyde and Clara also happily sharing a bed and the movie hints at a lot of other bed hopping in the Kinsey group. But an encounter with one subject, an admitted ( and very frank ) sex addict ( played with unnerving authority by William Sadler ) sickens assistant Wardell Pomeroy ( Chris O'Donnell—where has he been? ) and even momentarily unnerves Kinsey.
Gays and lesbians, however, the movie makes clear, owe Kinsey a huge debt of gratitude. We were the real beneficiaries of his then daring revelation that gay and lesbian sex ( not to mention masturbation ) , though underground, was rampant and that much of the straight 'curious' population had given it a twirl. Director Condon ( who also wrote the screenplay ) honors this at the film's highpoint near its end with a scene in which Lynn Redgrave as an unnamed lesbian thanks Kinsey for literally saving her life with the publication of his findings.
By that time, Kinsey and company were mired in controversy extending from the public outcry over his findings and his refusal to help self-loathing closet homo J. Edgar Hoover root his lavender brethren out of the State Department. Kinsey had lost his major funding, been turned on by many in his running scared inner circle and was vilified throughout the nation. The hullabaloo had taken a huge toll on his health and he was encouraged by many to give up his sex studies. Yet in the scene with Redgrave, Condon imagines a blessing for Kinsey that hopefully he got in real life. Certainly, the timing of this sexy picture's opening, at the dawning of four years with a newly empowered conservative ruling class, is a bit of a blessing itself.
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If you believe in fairies clap your hands for the magical, wondrous Finding Neverland. This is the story, 'inspired' by true events, of how English writer James M. Barrie created his classic Peter Pan. Johnny Depp, in another of his remarkable transformation/performances, plays Barrie with his usual assortment of acting tics ( listen to his pronunciation of 'tse-tse' fly ) . At the outset of the movie, set in London in 1903, Barrie has had another play flop and his producer ( Dustin Hoffman ) is urging him to do something more commercial, his wife is concerned with social climbing and all he wants to do is sit in the park and play with his new friends: the sons of a young, beautiful widow he meets there ( Kate Winslet ) . All become instrumental in his creation of the story of the boy who refuses to grow up.
Sadly, we are vividly shown that, though it is perhaps more satisfying than anything in real life, there is a price to be paid for 'all that pretending,' that deep play. This amazing film is director Marc Foster's follow-up to his equally celebrated, though very gritty and intense melodrama, Monster's Ball, and is its polar opposite. Foster's ability to handle two such diverse subjects is a testament to a great talent and I eagerly await his next movie. 'Unlock your imagination' is the film's tagline and we can be astonished and grateful that the film does just that—in many creative, charming ways.
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Local Screening: Girl Wrestler, the documentary that follows 13-year-old Texas teenager Tara Neal's quest to be accepted in the male-dominated sport is scheduled for broadcast on PBS in December but will have a sneak preview at 7 p.m. this Friday, Nov. 19 at Chicago Filmmakers. The film's director ( and former Chicagoan ) Diane Zander will attend. www.chicagofilmmakers.org
