Kinsey

Writer-director Bill Condon traces the career of Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), the Indiana University zoologist whose controversial research into sexual practices created a sensation in post-World War II America, with implications and backlashes that reverberate to this day. Kinsey rattled strait-laced cages in his day, but he was one odd duck and more than a little creepy, and not all his methods have stood the test of time. Condon avoids mentioning much of that and soft-pedals the rest, opting instead for a standard Hollywood hagiography about a brave pioneer contending with a repressive society. Performances are excellent, and the period look is impeccable, but Condon’s worshipful tone makes the movie an exercise in unconscious irony: an utterly conventional biography of an utterly unconventional man.