Reviews

On the strength of the advance advertising, I was really looking forward to seeing "Zodiac". I expected a taut, tense thriller. Instead, I found myself mind-numbingly bored for two and a half hours.

"Zodiac" should have been an exciting tale of a cat-and-mouse game between a murderer and those out to catch him. At the very least, it should have been a fascinating psychological portrait of what makes a killer tick -- or, for that matter, what drives the police and the reporters on his trail.

"Zodiac" unfortunately fails on both scores. It plods when it should race, does not engage our emotions, and does not provide compelling motives for the Zodiac or for those pursuing him. (The victims are appallingly disposable. We are given no incentive to care about them at all.) Indeed, the "evidence" presented by the film did not convince me of the main suspect's guilt. For instance, why does the killer adopt a different modus operandi for each murder? (We are told that the Zodiac took credit for crimes he did not commit. Possible, but not very persuasive.) "Zodiac" works best as an exploration of Robert Graysmith's obsession with the case, to the point of risking his marriage to bring the killer to justice. But, even here, despite Jake Gyllenhaal's stellar performance, the film does not quite succeed.

"Zodiac" has a great soundtrack of hits from the late 1960s and 1970s, and it wonderfully captures the look of that plaid-and-polyester period. (Gracious, did we really wear such ugly clothes?) There is one slip-up on the screenwriter's part. The suspected killer is referred to as possibly being a pedophile. I'm pretty certain that term did not come into common usage until after the mid-1980s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, we would have called him a child molester. (More to the point, however, why would a pedophile target adults rather than children?) I read one review that called "Zodiac" a police procedural. For me, however, it felt more like an epidural. Despite a constellation of acting talent, the stars simply do not align.

"The Painted Veil" is an instructive example of how music can (literally) be instrumental to a film, and not merely incidental. This comes at a time when film scores sometimes overpower the action and dialog, and songs do not move the plot along but seem tacked on at the end in a bid for an Oscar.

"The Painted Veil" makes use of Erik Satie's deceptively simple yet hauntingly beautiful "Gnossienne" as a leitmotiv. The melody is deceptively simple because the heroine, Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts), is able to play it on the out-of-tune piano of an orphanage in China. But, at the same time, it is hauntingly beautiful because it has the power to remind Kitty, her husband Walter (Edward Norton), and the audience of the moment they met and he, at least, fell in love. The "Gnossienne" has certainly remained indelibly engraved in my mind, as memorable as Satie's "Gymnopédies".

Apart from the music, "The Painted Veil" is a film I was admittedly reluctant to see on the strength of the preview. But I'm glad I finally went. I had expected a romantic-epic saga. Instead, the film tells the tale of a less than romantic relationship that eventually blooms into true, deep, and lasting love. "The Painted Veil" serves as a salutary reminder that, like the music of Satie's "Gnossienne", love need not always be a stirring, sweeping passion but can also be delicate and sweet.

Every once in a while, a film is met with widespread critical acclaim that it may well deserve on its artistic merits alone. Yet, for social and cultural reasons, the same motion picture may deserve to be roundly criticized. "Notes on a Scandal" is a case in point.

The real scandal is that "Notes on a Scandal" was made at all. (Whether the P.D. James novel ought to have been written is a literary issue, and as such beyond the scope of this review.) "Notes on a Scandal" is being touted for three major Oscar awards: best actress (Judi Dench), best supporting actress (Cate Blanchett), and best adapted screenplay. In another year, it might have vied for Best Picture ... if the year was, say, 1965.

A year after "Brokeback Mountain", we are entitled to something far more socially enlightened than this potboiler about an aging lesbian's obsessive fascination with a younger woman.

At no time is the word "lesbian" even uttered, though it is plain almost right away that this is the essence of Judi Dench's character. At no time is there even the slightest hint that (a) healthy relationships are possible between women, or (b) a politically active community of such women exists.

It is sad to see the talents of Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Bill Nighy wasted on such a retrograde, reactionary, and ridiculous project.

If you fancy that sort of thing, you would do better to see "The Children's Hour" (written by Lillian Helmann, starring Shirley Maclaine and Audrey Hepburn). At least, that motion picture was made in a social context where repression was rife, and was thus true to its times.

"Notes on a Scandal" is anything but.

This film would more appropriately be called "The Naivety Story". It relies too much on the text of the New Testament at crucial junctures, anxious to appear orthodox in its theology, and perhaps too lazy to imagine a new way of telling the age-old tale in the 21st century. The use of traditional Christmas hymns and carols, and the language of the Revised King James Version of the Bible, jar our modern ears and sensibilities.

The film plays fast and loose even with the biblical chronology, collapsing the Nativity story into a one-year period, when Herod's "massacre of the holy innocents" would have taken place at least two years after the wise men's visit to Jerusalem -- if indeed it ever occurred at all, since there is no historical record of it.

The archangel Gabriel looks embarrassingly like the cover of a BeeGees or ABBA album. The shepherds are given precious little motivation to go to the stable and seem to be merely an afterthought to the far more complex and interesting Magi.

That being said, director Catherine Hardwicke marvelously recreates the world of Judea at the dawn of the Christian era. In particular, she pays loving attention to the details of everyday life among the lowly poor, and she paints a believable picture of the dangers of Mary and Joseph's journey to be counted in Bethlehem. However, it might have been more accurate to call them Miriam and Yousuf, and their child Yeshua. We are also told too little about the ritual practices of the Temple. It is assumed that we are already conversant with its manner of worship.

Whether one accepts the basic premise of the film -- the incarnation of God in human flesh -- is a matter of faith. How one conveys that timeless message, however, is a matter of reason, thought, and just plain good old-fashioned movie-making. "The Nativity Story" gets an A for naive, trusting, innocent faith, but an F for failing to communicate that faith convincingly to a modern-day audience.

"The History Boys" may work as a literary exercise, full of clever witticisms and sparkling, scintillating dialog. It even offers some interesting observations about the nature of history. But, as a play and a film, "The History Boys" ultimately fails because it lacks emotional honesty and the courage of its convictions.

Literature and history are treated as a parlor game -- preparation for a college entrance exam, or shiny baubles of randomly acquired facts. As for life and love, "The History Boys" has precious little to teach us about these.

There are many wink-wink, nudge-nudge references to history's gay writers, artists, musicians, and philosophers. "The History Boys" pays lip service to the notion of homosexuality as a metaphor for living boldly. In the end, however, the film seems to dismiss being gay as amounting to no more than sex, not even sensuality, and certainly not sensitivity. Like sex without commitment, "The History Boys" is fun while it lasts, but it leaves you feeling empty when it's over and done with.

"Beowulf and Grendel" is a unique combination of Greek tragedy, classic quest, and postmodern sensibility. Its hero, Beowulf, prevails, not by force of arms, but through understanding of the mind and of the heart. Its "monster", Grendel, is no monster at all but a human writ large, capable of feeling fear, suffering, pain, filial piety, and love.

The Danes, beset by the marauding monster, see its depredations as blind fate. Beowulf, a Geat and thus an outsider, with the help of Selma, a witch/whore and thus also an outsider, realizes that things happen for a reason. A wrong has been done and must be set to rights; balance must be restored and the dead honored and appeased, before life can resume its peaceful course.

"Beowulf and Grendel" introduces an interesting conflict between the old Norse gods and the advent of Christianity. Ultimately, however, the film rejects divine intervention in favor of human understanding as the mark of the hero.

In Greek tragedy, the hero would have a tragic flaw that proves his downfall. In "Beowulf and Grendel" (the movie), it is the society surrounding the hero that suffers from such a flaw, and the hero is more like the soothsayer or truth teller who mends the error that has been made.

I highly recommend "Beowulf and Grendel" as a fascinating look at a long-ago era of history, seen through the lens of our own time.

"Letters from Iwo Jima" might as well have been made in black and white, or sepia, like the opening and closing sequences of "The Wizard of Oz". In the Victor Fleming musical, the distinction between sepia and color served to demarcate the dreariness of Dorothy's Kansas from the fantasy of Oz.

The Clint Eastwood epic has a washed-out look most of the time, during battle scenes. The only time it blooms into full color is when we are shown the more remote past (the 1920s, when the Ken Watanabe character lived in America) and the future postwar era, when the letters are dug up. The idea, it seems, is that the "present day", the war era, is a bleak and hopeless period when Japan suffered defeat at the hands of its enemy. Gee, what a concept -- I would never have got it if not for the color scheme! To be frank, I slept through much of the first hour because I found the film a mind-numbingly crashing bore, the way I slept through D-Day in "Saving Private Ryan". I felt like I was watching the ultimate guy movie (women are rarely seen), with things blowing up all over the place, like "World War II: The Video Game".

Only in the last half did the film become more interesting. Even then, I had problems with it. The theme, repeated twice in case we didn't hear it the first time, is: "Do what is right because it is right." Yes, but right for whom? Are we talking about moral absolutes? Are we talking about "my country, right or wrong"? Or are we talking about right in the sense of honorable, where death is preferable to a life of defeat and shame? The other thing that bothered me about "Letters from Iwo Jima" is the suggestion that the Japanese and the Americans are, after all, human beings and more alike than they are different. One almost gets the idea that the Japanese are merely Americans with slanted eyes and high cheekbones.

Yet the Japanese are portrayed in a very positive light, while the Americans are sometimes shown as brutal and ruthless. If you believe Eastwood's revisionist history, you could be forgiven for wondering if these were the same Japanese who orchestrated the death march of Bataan in the Philippines.

The Japanese, at least, learn something about the Americans -- that they are neither as evil nor as cowardly as they have been led to believe. It is by no means clear that the Americans learn anything at all.

Clint Eastwood's role as boxing trainer Frankie Dunn is by far the best thing about "Million Dollar Baby". His gruff, gravelly portrayal gives the film its heart and soul. He earns our sympathy for his character, without lapsing into cloying sentimentality.

As boxer Maggie Fitzgerald, Hilary Swank is limited by the narrow range of her role to giving a one-note performance. I was not convinced that her character had sufficient motivation to escape the confines of her life as a waitress. Swank is more believable in her response to her trailer-trash family. She is generous and well-intentioned at first, hurt when her generosity is not appreciated, and incensed when she finds out what vultures her mother and siblings really are.

Margo Martindale is excellent as Maggie's mother Earline. She strikes exactly the right note in both of her scenes as a woman who cares more about welfare payments than the welfare of her flesh and blood.

As washed-up boxer Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris, Morgan Freeman serves as little more than a chorus in this modern Greek tragedy. His voice-over provides expository material. In other words, Freeman tells us what the film should show us. This kind of exposition is deadly in a film, the opposite of what good screen writing and good cinema should be.

"Million Dollar Baby" earned Clint Eastwood an Oscar nomination as best actor and best director. He richly deserves the acting nod, but his directorial skills on this film are open to question.

Eastwood's craft gets in the way of the story instead of helping it along. The music in the final reel is too syrupy and saccharine. Too many scenes are cloaked in shadow, as if to remind us symbolically of the darkness that lurks in men's souls.

A well-crafted film is one where the craft is seamless and invisible. When we become overly conscious of the director's (or actor's) craft, it becomes obtrusive and distracting. It keeps us from entering the world of the film, being enthralled by the story told.

This flaw prevented me from buying into "Million Dollar Baby". The film did not move me, or draw me into its human drama, but left me a cold, distant bystander, an observer. "Million Dollar Baby" failed to deliver a knockout punch. I ended up feeling suckered instead.

The title "Hotel Rwanda" is somewhat misleading and a misnomer. No actual Hotel Rwanda figures in the story, which centers rather around the Hotel Mille Collines (so named because Rwanda is known as "the land of a thousand hills").

In another sense, however, the title is entirely apt and appropriate, since what happens at the hotel is a microcosmic reproduction of what happened in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and throughout the country in 1994 -- the genocide of one million members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, as well as moderate majority Hutus.

"Hotel Rwanda" sketches in the background to the bloodshed without overloading us with expository material. It manages to explain, in a few quick strokes, the legacy of colonialism and ethnic division that led to tragedy on a national scale.

Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is the Rwandan manager of the Belgian-owned Hotel Mille Collines. He finds himself in the midst of a dangerous, violent and explosive situation, and faced with the personification of evil and the heart of darkness. His response is initially to hope that the storm will be short-lived. Ultimately, however, he must react and respond and become a force for the triumph of goodness and love. He comes to realize that it is not enough to protect his wife and children, his family. He must be the guardian angel of all who turn to him for help, and embrace the family of man. As the film's tag line aptly puts it, "When the world closed its eyes, he opened his arms." "Hotel Rwanda" suitably conveys the horror of genocide, without erring on the side of excess, of gore and bloodletting. The film balances this horror with the beauty of love and kindness, devotion to duty and a sense of responsibility. Moreover, the film shows how, even in a maelstrom of madness, human beings keep their sanity and perspective through the gift of gentle humor.

The Eagles' song "Hotel California" says, "You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave." But "Hotel Rwanda" leaves us with the feeling of hope that even the darkest night of inhumanity gives way to the brightness and warmth of a brand new day. And, as the film suggests, ten years after the nightmare of genocide, Rwanda is indeed seeing the sun of justice once again.

"The Woodsman" gets its title partly from the fact that its central character, Walter (Kevin Bacon), works in a lumberyard after spending twelve years in prison for sexually assaulting pre-teenage girls.

The title also stems from an image evoked by Sgt. Lucas (Mose Def), that of the fairy-tale woodsman who hacks open the wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.

The writer of the screenplay, and of the play on which the film is based, has picked the wrong woodsman. The reference should have been to the Tin Woodsman in "The Wizard of Oz", who rusts solid during a sudden downpour and is unable to move.

This is a better reflection of what has happened to Walter. He is frozen in time, stuck in an endless repetition of a pattern set in the distant past. And, like the Tin Woodsman of Oz, he must find a wizard who will give him a heart. In Walter's case, the wizard comes in the form of a tough-as-nails female co-worker (Kyra Sedgewick).

Bacon is good as the paroled pedophile trying to achieve some sense of normalcy. His ability to convey his character's inner workings is somewhat hampered by a script that does not allow him to be openly and frankly sexual toward true objects of his desire. The audience is obliged to read between the lines. When he has passionate sex with his adult girlfriend, we assume that he is secretly fantasizing about sex with young girls. (No wonder the girlfriend calls the experience "intense"!) More revealing is a second scene where he is seen acting out his pedophile behavior with her.

Sedgewick shines as the woman who befriends him, especially in the scene where she learns his secret, and her face morphs from amused and disbelieving (as if he is joking) to crestfallen and stricken.

"The Woodsman" has a few flaws. He meets his nemesis in another female co-worker, whose advances he rejects, prompting her to take revenge. You can see the revenge coming a mile away, telegraphed not very subtly to an audience whose savvy deserves better. The depiction of a second pedophile is stereotypical, not far removed from the dirty old man in a trench coat of popular lore.

But "The Woodsman" gets high marks for being a brave attempt to put a human face on what society usually brands an inhuman monster. The film admirably portrays what it is like to be such a man. Unfortunately, it is somewhat less successful in telling us how he got to be that way.

I fell in love with Baz Luhrmann as a director when he released "Romeo and Juliet", and brought a timeless classic to life for a new generation. I was struck by his inventive genius -- I mean, who else would have thought of using the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart as emblems identifying the Montagues and the Capulets? Yet even that did not prepare me for the bedazzling display of manic energy and glorious excess that is "Moulin Rouge". I saw it again recently on television, and realized just how busy the film is -- almost too much to absorb, a constant assault on the senses.

Yet all is not noise and cacophony. There is harmony, too. Take, for instance, the sequence where "Lady Marmelade" and "Entertainer" are seamlessly woven together in a way I have not seen since the Big Band sound merged with soft rock in "Xanadu".

Ewan McGregor (as Christian) is the heart and soul of the film, the troubadour of "truth, beauty, freedom, and love". He turns out to have a wonderful singing voice. Who knew? And he is able to deliver the hackneyed clichés with a perfectly straight face, genuine emotion, and touching naivety that makes you want to believe every word.

Nicole Kidman (as Satine) pulls off the amazing feat of making you completely forget Marilyn Monroe ever sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". Kidman makes the number all her own. She is the counterpoint to McGregor's lovesick swain -- a turn-of-the-century Material Girl.

But the true genius of "Moulin Rouge" lies, not in its visual appeal, not in the acting skill of its principals and supporting cast, but in its bitingly satirical commentary on modern-day popular culture, seen through the lens of turn-of-the-century Paris.

Luhrmann uses Christian and Satine as vehicles for an incisive examination of the cynicism and materialism of modern-day society, masked by the false romanticism of popular music and literature. Luhrmann slyly weaves classic song lyrics into the film's dialogue. Once the pleasant shock and surprise of recognition wears off, we realize just how corny they are -- or, more to the point, how jaded we have become.

"Moulin Rouge" is a movie with a message, and that message is best captured in the words of Sir Paul McCartney: Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. And what's wrong with that?

The HBO TV movie "My House in Umbria" should be seen primarily for the complex and layered performance of divine Maggie Smith. As romance novelist Emily Delahunty, she projects an image of refinement and elegance that conceals a deeper, darker self. That self is revealed slowly, and we find hidden within a character that is not only at variance with Miss Delahunty's adopted persona, but also very different from the prim and proper ladies Maggie Smith habitually plays on the silver screen. We see that Miss Smith is capable even of being seductive and slatternly, most unlike her many repressed and spinsterish roles.

Maggie Smith has the kind of mesmerizing voice and marvelous diction that would enable her to entertain film audiences by reading the proverbial telephone book. I am reminded of Glenda Jackson's (virtual) one-woman show in "Stevie" and Joanne Woodward's voice-over of "The Age of Innocence".

The rest of the characters in "My House in Umbria" are, alas, a motley crew, sketched in only very lightly, merely second bananas to Maggie Smith's central figure. The time of the story is difficult to pin down based on the clothes and motor cars, but one imagines it takes place during the 1970s, the era of the Bader-Meinhof gang in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy. The denouement is a little too pat, but the journey is still well worth our while.

One of the key questions raised in the film is what anger would drive a human being to commit an act of terror. But it becomes quickly apparent that political terrorism is not the only kind of "man's inhumanity to man" that is intended here. The focus is, rather, on innocence shattered and destroyed, the cruelty visited by individuals upon each other, the sense of guilt that it engenders, and the possibility of forgiveness and redemption that always, always exists if we "seize the day" and allow ourselves to be happy.

Forgive the pun, but director Joel Schumacher seems to have cobbled this film together.

First, the good news. Miranda Richardson is a sparkling gem. Of all the characters, only she seems solid and real, sober and grounded. She brings a note of true elegance and class to the proceedings.

A friend of mine says Gerard Butler looks too much like a GQ model. I must admit that, with his open shirt, I spent far more time looking at his hairy, hunky chest than his rugged, manly face. Yet he lacked the sensuality that the lyrics of "Music of the Night" would lead you to expect. The physical distance between the Phantom and Christine is one operatic convention that the film should have ignored.

To its credit, the film tries to give the Phantom a back story, making him a freak suffering the cruelty and abuse of "normal" folk (rather like the Elephant Man). But the film fails to explain how the Phantom morphed from a ragged, dirty street urchin to a stylish, rakish gentleman. It also claims he is an architectural, artistic, and musical genius, but does not tell us how he discovered and developed his gifts. His deformity looks like a congenital birthmark or skin disease, and is enough to justify his self-loathing and feeling of rejection. But his mirror smashing unfortunately inspired another pop culture reference for me -- the Who's rock opera "Tommy". (Altogether too many such pop culture references occurred to me, suggesting that the film is somehow derivative and lacking in originality.) Emmy Rossum is a pretty little thing, but every time I looked at her, all I could think of was Anne Hathaway in "The Princess Diaries". Minnie Driver is way over the top as the prima donna diva, but at least they dubbed an operatic voice for her.

Speaking of voices, the film is about an opera house, yet the lead singers' voices are anything but operatic. Gerard Butler's is more so than Emmy Rossum's, but both struck me as having far more of a pop flavor. Listening to Emmy Rossum, I was reminded of such Disney animated heroines as Ariel in "The Little Mermaid".

The sound level seemed uneven -- at times too low to hear properly, at times too loud and jarring. The lush orchestration and sometimes thin, reedy voices made it hard for me to capture every note and nuance of the song score. Equally jolting was the echo used for the Phantom's offstage voice. If a musical should be anything, it should be audible and comprehensible. The film version of "Phantom" fails on both counts.

The black-and-white sequences are a nice touch, but why give a retro look to scenes that take place at a later date than the color images? As for costumes and set design, the wardrobe is a tad garish and gaudy, the decor somewhat rococo. The crowd scenes are too busy, and the choreography in the "Masquerade" scene was frankly reminiscent of Madonna's "Vogue" video, fans and all. The dry-ice fog and candelabras emerging from the sewers of Paris worked about as well as they did in the stage musical, which is not at all. And the damn chandelier still plunged at an oblique angle, which defies gravity and common sense, and left me feeling just as cheated as I did in the live theater.

In short, I wanted very much to like the film version of "The Phantom of the Opera", but I'm afraid all of its flaws didn't give me a ghost of a chance.

When I heard that Leonardo Di Caprio had been chosen to play Howard Hughes, I couldn't see him in the role. But now, having seen "The Aviator", I understand why the baby-faced, perennially young actor got the nod. "The Aviator" illustrates the time-worn maxim that the child is father to the man, and Leonardo's looks help to convey this. One particular shot shows just how vulnerable and in need of protection a grown man can be. Apart from his facial features, Di Caprio's acting communicates Hughes' childlike sense of wonder and excitement, and his equally childlike dependency on the maternal figures in his life.

Cate Blanchett plays one of these pivotal women, the late great Kate Hepburn. Once again, I was skeptical that Blanchett could capture Ms. Hepburn's speech, looks, and mannerisms. I am delighted to report that, by and large, she succeeds marvelously, and without being a caricature of the immortal actress. Most of the time, with few lapses, Blanchett echoes the lilt of Kate's speech and the tilt of her chin. The mouth and chin are Kate's all right, the nose somewhat less so, the eyes not at all. (Note to makeup department: Blanchett's hair is all wrong. When it is short, it does not mirror the butch haircut Hepburn sported in "Sylvia Scarlett". When it is worn longer, it seems rather too long.) Di Caprio and Blanchett are the luminaries among the cast, but the rest of the firmament is star-studded as well. Kate Beckinsale portrays Ava Gardner as a brisk and capable woman, able to bring Hughes back from the brink of his spiral downward into madness. (I must admit, however, that until I saw her name in the credits, I was positive the actress was Eva Longoria from "Desperate Housewives"). Alan Alda is equally commendable as a senator from Maine, although I have trouble believing Hughes could have cowed a Senate hearing as Di Caprio does.

But there is another bright star in this film: the script. There is no denying that the cast performs with energy and verve, but it is clear that the script of "The Aviator" gives them wings. The script makes it clear, for instance, that Hughes was a math whiz as well as a technical genius. The opening sequence speaks volumes about the relationship Hughes had with his mother, which colors and sets the tone for the rest of the story. And the scene where Hughes meets Hepburn's family -- a formidable collection of intellectual snobs and parlor pinks -- provides a telling counterpoint to Hughes' success as a self-taught, self-made man.

Howard Hughes may have ended his life as a wing nut with a screw loose, but "The Aviator" is as sleek and streamlined as his Constellation aircraft, soaring high into the stratosphere, with nary a crash and burn.

Hollywood finally got it right! "Kinsey" is the first (and only) major motion picture this year to deal openly, honestly, and squarely with gay sex and same-sex relationships. It succeeds where Oliver Stone's "Alexander" failed so miserably, and where "A Home at the End of the World" came up short. (Both of the latter films starred Colin Farrell. Go figure.) And while it would have been nice to see Timothy Hutton or Chris O'Donnell step up to the plate, Peter Sarsgaard performs admirably, so to speak, in the role of Clyde Martin, Alfred Kinsey's male lover and the counterpoint to Laura Linney's portrayal of Kinsey's wife, Clara McMillen.

The kiss between Liam Neeson (as Kinsey) and Peter Sarsgaard (as Martin) is genuine, passionate, even desperate. Sarsgaard also gets full marks for consenting to full front nudity, another area where Colin Farrell proved skittish.

It is somehow fitting that "Kinsey" (the film) is a breakthrough in same-sex portrayals in cinema, since Kinsey himself was instrumental in bringing gay sex out of the closet. If "Kinsey" had balked at showing full male frontal nudity and a passionate screen kiss, it would have lost all credibility. Instead, it addressed the issue of homosexuality head on. Vanessa Redgrave's cameo at the end of the film is especially moving, with echos of her role in the TV movie "If These Walls Could Talk", and a tip of the hat to another of her roles in "Gods and Monsters".

Technically speaking, "Kinsey" deserves a nod for editing (both visual and sound). The montage of sex histories, with overlapping dialog, is particularly spectacular.

The film's honesty strikes a delicate balance between forthright discussion of sexual matters and consideration of the emotional and moral aspects of sexuality. The film does not err by excess, whether prudishness or prurience. And "Kinsey" ends with thoughts, not of sex, but of love -- which is what it is (or should be) all about.

"Kinsey" gets only one thing wrong. In the final reel, Neeson claims that love cannot be measured. On the contrary. Kinsey's own relationships with his wife and his lover are evidence that it can. Sex is measured in seconds, minutes, hours at most. But love is measured in days, weeks, months and years. It is immeasurable only in the sense that it can transcend the boundaries of space and time, overcoming distance and separation, and endure forever. That is a feat no mere biological, physiological phenomenon can ever hope to achieve.