Kinsey (film)

Kinsey is a 2004 American biographical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, Tim Curry, and John Lithgow.

The film recounts part of the life of renowned sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who with the help of Wardell Pommery produced a report on human sexual behavior, the famous Kinsey Report. Its publication caused a great social uproar in Western culture, and in American society in particular, which saw Kinsey's work demystify many aspects of human sexuality.

Plot

Professor Alfred Kinsey, the protagonist of the story, is being interviewed about his sexual history. During the interview, two of the most important moments in Kinsey's life are revealed to the viewer as flashbacks. Two sequences appear: one of them in his childhood, when he was a boy scout, and the other when Kinsey argues with his father about his vocational intentions. The scene changes to Kinsey teaching at Indiana University as a biology professor specializing in the gall wasp, where the story begins.

Kinsey falls in love with Clara McMillen, a student in his class, and marries her. They have three children. Meanwhile, at the University, Professor Kinsey, affectionately called "Prok" (Professor K-insey) by his graduate students, meets with students after school to offer advice on sexual issues. When he begins this activity, in some quarters he is labeled dirty, but the students, in addition to asking for advice, sometimes talk about his sexual life, which increases Kinsey's knowledge about sex.

At a party celebrating the publication of Kinsey's book on the gall fly, Kinsey approaches the dean of students about creating a course on sex education. Momentarily, it is approved. Kinsey begins by teaching in a small auditorium, and the course is only for faculty and graduate students, older or married. Meanwhile, Kinsey continues to gather information in personal interviews, and after conducting a questionnaire for all members of his sex education class, he discovers the great disparity between the sexual practices they carry out and society's ideas about them. same. After receiving financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Kinsey and his team travel the country, interviewing different subjects to learn about his sexual history.

As time passes, Dr. Kinsey discovers that sexual relations involving two humans of the same sex are more frequent than originally thought. For this reason, he creates a new way of classifying humans with the "Kinsey Scale", which classifies the sexuality of people in a range that goes from number 0 to 6, from completely homosexual to completely heterosexual.. As he develops his research, however, he encounters increasing opposition and obstacles from the most powerful social and political forces, those who oppose his completion of his work.

Cast

• Liam Neeson... Alfred Kinsey
• Laura Linney... Clara McMillen
• Peter Sarsgaard... Clyde Martin
• Chris O'Donnell... Wardell Pomeroy
• Timothy Hutton... Paul Gebhard
• John Lithgow... Alfred Seguine Kinsey
• Tim Curry... Thurman Rice
• Oliver Platt... Herman Wells
• Dylan Baker... Alan Gregg
• William Sadler... Kenneth Braun
• John McMartin... Huntington Hartford
• John Krasinski... Ben
• Lynn Redgrave... Woman of the final interview
• David Harbour... Robert Kinsey