Kinsey (2004)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Alfred Kinsey	Liam Neeson
Clara McMillen	Laura Linney	½
Wardell Pomrroy	Chris O'Donnell
Clyde Martin	Peter Sarsgaard	½
Paul Gebhard	Timothy Hutton	½
Alfred Seguine Kinsey	John Lithgow
Thurman Rice	Tim Curry	½
Herman Wells	Oliver Platt
Alan Gregg	Dylan Baker	½
Alice Martin	Julianna Nicholson
Kenneth Braun	William Sadler

Review

Bill Condon knows the importance of Alfred Kinsey and his work, but he still lets the viewer figure it out mostly by himself in this well-conceived and poignant biography. Liam Neeson's performance is not only a powerhouse, but a delicately detailed one. His performance outlines the shifts in mood and focus in the film, which is a magnificent blessing for the likes of Bill Condon - once the director of fairly mediocre horror films who broke onto the big scene with the James Whale-biography Gods and Monsters in 1998. He perfects his business here, adding good-natured but essential comedy in nice portions while always letting the red line of Kinsey's life stay near the surface of attention. The film is made with a sense of class, acknowledging both the unbiased mind its protagonist has to the material and how the audience of today will attend to it.

As a dramatic biography, Kinsey is powerful not only in a social and historical context, but also as the portrait of a man whose drive and dedication sometimes overrode other aspects of his life. Things Kinsey never did intentionally, but by being the devoted man he was. It bears resemblance to John Nash in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, and Neeson's performance doesn't fade in the light of Crowe's - which is a remarkable compliment. By Neeson's side, Laura Linney continues her fine vain of form with another heart-on-sleeve-performance, while the rest of the supporting cast (although partly typecast) is delightful.