Kinsey's research provided for the first time in history a large-scale, systematic, detailed body of data about human sexual behavior. I believe he was a major force in demystifying the physical aspects of sex, and that seems to have had an enormous impact on modern sexual consciousness. But it appears to me Kinsey paid scant attention to the fact that sex usually carries with it a substantial emotional component.
The film chronicles Kinsey's career at Indiana University, including his early work with gall wasps, his teaching of a sex education course, his recruitment of research assistants, his development of the face-to-face interview to obtain people's sex histories, and the publication of the Kinsey Report that catapulted him to fame.
I would say the movie's strength is in intertwining Kinsey's work with his personal life. The film sketches Kinsey's upbringing in a puritanical family and depicts his father as a tyrant. There's also the story of Kinsey's 35-year marriage. But Kinsey gets into a sexual relationship with a male research assistant, and later that same research assistant has sex with Mrs. Kinsey. Then there's the filming of various sex acts in Kinsey's attic.
"Kinsey" has a rather clinical tone, and I think few people today will be offended by the movie's visual images and frank talk. (Apparently the MPAA agrees since they gave it an R rating.) But the film raises some unsettling issues, and how you react will depend to some extent on your own attitudes towards sexuality and society.
As for me, I found "Kinsey" thought-provoking and well-paced, but it's overly tidy for my taste, and at times I felt I was getting a heavy-handed sermon on tolerance. The title character comes off to me as not seeming all that complex, and my reading of the movie is that it makes him into a hero. It seems to me the filmmakers were more into making a statement than in creating a character study.
On DVD, "Kinsey" comes as a two-disc set. One disc contains the feature film, along with a full-length audio commentary by Bill Condon, who wrote and directed the movie. He states that "Kinsey" has over a hundred speaking parts, and one of the major reasons he filmed in New York was so he could be near a large pool of professional actors. Also, Condon claims that Kinsey cultivated the image of a respectable family man, even as he engaged in extramarital sexual relations, encouraged open marriages among his staff, and dabbled in masochistic behavior.
The second disc in the two-disc set contains various bonus materials. One of these is the one-hour-twenty-three-minute "The Kinsey Report: Sex on Film," which is a making-of documentary. This includes lots of exposition by Condon, along with commentary by many other people in the cast and crew. I ended up not feeling well-rewarded for having spent so much time watching it, although a few things caught my interest. For example, producer Gail Mutrux talks about the vigorous opposition to the movie led by Judith Reisman, head of the organization RSVPAmerica, which stands for Restore Sexual Virtue and Purity to America.
The second disc also provides 20 deleted scenes plus an alternate ending. These total about 25 minutes, and I found them worthwhile. In one of the deleted scenes, Kinsey states he had several extramarital sexual partners, and in another his wife worries that his credibility would be destroyed if it became known that his partners were male. The deleted scenes can all optionally be played with director's audio commentary, and in one of them Condon claims that the shorthand term "S&M" arose out of the coded way Kinsey and his assistants communicated with one other in public places.
Other bonus materials on the second disc include a three-minute gag reel, a six-and-a-half-minute featurette on an exhibit at the Kinsey Institute, and a 45-question Interactive Sex Questionnaire that is supposed to measure the respondent's tendency for sexual excitation and inhibition.
On the next page, I've listed all the special features of the "Kinsey" DVD set.
