Misbehaviour review: This is a film that raises complex questions 

Misbehaviour                                                                            Cert: 12A, 1hr 46mins

Rating:

We live in seismic times for the women’s movement, with the Time’s Up and #MeToo campaigns still running strongly on both sides of the Atlantic, and powerful, abusive men finally being held to account. 

But we have lived through such tumultuous times before – 50 years ago, in fact – as this new film starring Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley does such an entertaining and yet thought-provoking job of reminding us.

It whisks us back to the Miss World contest of 1970, when a group of women’s liberation protesters noisily interrupted the swimsuit parade, lascivious talk of 36-24-36 figures and a chauvinist comedy spot from the American comedian Bob Hope by yelling their disapproval, pelting the stage with flour bombs and firing water pistols filled with ink.

There’s a sobering moment when you realise that the pistols are probably realistic enough to get them shot by armed police these days. But not back then – the women were eventually arrested, the stage swept, and a cowering Hope pushed back on by organisers Eric and Julia Morley. 

The show, they insisted, must go on. It was eventually won by Miss Grenada, the first black winner, whose success has always been marred by the fact that the prime minister of her Caribbean island was one of the judges. 

But that’s another story… although, with anti-apartheid protesters also targeting the contest, racism does get a good airing here, too.

Younger readers may struggle to imagine what a ‘big thing’ Miss World was back then, or to understand that its now glaringly obvious sexism was very much a reflection of the everyday sexism of those times and therefore invisible. 

But it’s very visible now – look out for the truly excruciating moment when the poor swimsuit-clad contestants are asked to turn around so the entire audience – no, the entire world – can assess their bottoms.

Like Military Wives, this is a female-led production perfect for these power-shifting times, although, unlike that film, it not only has a strong female cast and an excellent screenplay written by women – Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe – but a female director too, the double Bafta TV-winning Philippa Lowthorpe.

She secures top-notch performances from a cast that, as well as Knightley, as mature student Sally Alexander, and Buckley, as the commune-dwelling activist Jo, also includes Keeley Hawes as Julia Morley (noticeably depicted here as a force for reforming good) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the surprise winner. 

It seems slightly off-message to mention it but Rhys Ifans is a hoot as the cheerfully sexist Eric Morley.

Lowthorpe gets strong support from her hair, make-up and wardrobe departments but is less successful in instilling a convincing sense of place. A London gentleman’s club is not just a poor stand-in for the Royal Albert Hall, where the event actually took place, it doesn’t even look like a theatre. 

There’s a poor sense of Oxford, too, where Sally was studying before she moved to London.

In a world still obsessed with Kim Kardashian’s bottom and Victoria’s Secret models, this is a picture that raises complex questions. While it’s obviously important that men should see this film, it’s perfect for a mother-and-daughter cinema outing, and given the fun Downton Abbey star Phyllis Logan has playing Sally’s mother – a woman who thinks getting your husband to cook dinner is sexist – you might want to take a grandmother along, too.

Times have definitely changed; the question is – how much?

 

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK

 

My Spy (12A)

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There’s no doubt this espionage comedy delivers some very funny, laugh- out-loud moments, and will only do good things for the post-wrestling career of Dave Bautista, still best known – as an actor, anyway – for his monosyllabic contributions to the Guardians Of The Galaxy films.

But there’s also no doubt that this Peter Segal-directed picture – very much in the tradition of Melissa McCarthy’s Spy, Steve Carell’s Get Smart (which Segal also directed) and Dwayne Johnson’s Central Intelligence – feels like a film that was made before it was ready, before anyone bravely chirped up and said: ‘Hey, isn’t this all a bit creepy?’ 

Because, as the film does eventually acknowledge, it is a bit.

Bautista plays JJ, a bungling CIA agent sent, by way of punishment, to Chicago on a low-grade surveillance operation to monitor the inevitably attractive widow of an arms-dealing baddie.

But when his cover is quickly blown by her lonely but resourceful nine-year- old daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman), who threatens to blackmail him with an incriminating video on her phone, he has little choice but to give in to her demands. 

Like going ice-skating with her and to Take A Special Friend day at school. Oh, and training her to become a spy.

Yes, Bautista and Coleman develop a nice screen rapport, but the comic mis-steps keep coming. One of his surveillance cameras is in the women’s bathroom and he threatens to kill the child (yes, I know, it’s a sort of joke) and suddenly we’re watching a precocious nine-year-old delivering lines about crack addicts.

And that’s all before Sophie tries fixing him up with her mum. Who knows nothing about his true identity. Funny undoubtedly, but sort of tasteless too.

 

The Hunt (15)

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Following mass shootings in the United States last year, the release of this blood-spattered gorefest has already been postponed once. And as the body count rapidly rises courtesy of high-velocity bullets, sharpened spikes, landmines and grenades (and that’s just the first 15 minutes), many will find themselves wondering why it’s being released at all. 

Be warned, this is very violent and very unpleasant.

Based – very loosely – on Richard Connell’s already much plundered 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, the Hunger Games– style action see 12 strangers waking up in unfamiliar woodland, to discover not only that they have been gagged, but also that they are about to be hunted by a sneering, select band of the wealthy elite.

It’s clearly meant to make us laugh at times, and it’s obvious there’s some sort of social satire afoot too, as we discover the victims are not always the nicest people.

But while Betty Gilpin impresses in the central role of Crystal, it’s a sobering surprise to find Hilary Swank gracing something quite so low-rent.