Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
“MISBEHAVIOUR” My rating: B-
106 minutes | No MPAA rating
It’s got a killer cast and a stirring inspired-by-headlines story to tell.
Yet Philippa Lowthorpe’s “Misbehaviour” only really kicks in during the closing credits, when through archival photos we get the stories of what happened to its real-life characters “after” the movie ends.
The subject here is the Miss World beauty pageant of 1970, when a staid institution was knocked on its ear by a rising tide of feminism and Third World influences.
Rebecca Frayne’s screenplay begins with Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley), a British mother and graduate student, being sucked into the world of “radical” feminism through her unexpected friendship with Jo Robinson (Jessie Buckley), a gleeful vandal who specializes in spray-paint sloganeering.
Despite her initial misgivings, her traditionalist mother (“Downton Abbey’s” Phyllis Logan) and her own responsibilities as a mom, Sally becomes a convert to the cause. It helps that she’s had humiliating run-ins with male-centric academia. Before long the other women are regarding her as a leader.
Sally, Jo and their comrades decide to disrupt the Miss World competition, a London-based event much beloved by the British public.
One of “Misbehaviour’s” many plot threads (“Mis-Behaviour” as in “Miss World”…get it?) centers on the married couple Eric and Julia Morley (Rhys Ifans and Keeley Hawes), operators of the pageant. He’s a guy who dispassionately analyzes a young woman’s physical attributes like a health inspector examining a side of beef; she’s a bit more attuned to the needs of modern women, but still committed to the family business.
Another plot involves the famous Hollywood comedian Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear with convincing fake nose and a not-very-convincing impersonation), who is hired as this year’s emcee. He is accompanied to his country of birth by his wife Dolores (Lesley Manville), who wearily tolerates his rampant philandering.
And then there are the contestants. 1970 was a memorable year for the pageant, and not only because of the feminist shenanigans that turned the live TV broadcast into a chaotic fiasco.
Left to right, top: Lesley Manville, Rhys Ifans, Keely Hawes, Greg Kinnear. Below: Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Under international pressure the contest’s organizer reluctantly allow for two contestants from apartheid South Africa. The white one (Emma Corrin) is labeled Miss South Africa, while the black one (Loreece Harrison) is designated Miss Africa South.
The front runners are widely considered to be Miss Sweden (Clara Rosager) and Miss Unite States (Suki Waterhouse), but there’s a dark horse candidate (sorry about that) in Jennifer Hosten (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who represents the tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada.
The film must juggle all these story lines, cutting in and out as the pageant officials and contestants prepare for the big night even as a small army of feminists risk arrest by infiltrating the proceedings.
“Misbehaviour” suffers from a surfeit of riches. Any one of these threads could have been the basis for an interesting film. But there’s so much going on here that the picture has no dramatic center.
At the onset we assumed that this is going to be about Knightley’s character (she’s the biggest name in the cast), but like everyone else she’s relegated to supporting status.
There’s also the matter of tone. Director Lowthorpe (a documentarian and TV director whose credits include “The Crown” and “Call the Midwife”) appears hesitant to commit. There are moments here that scream for a broad satiric POV, yet much of the film takes a bland, middle-of-the-road approach.
In fact, the film’s physical production — replete with hippie-era fashions and primitive TV technology — scores almost as many points as the unsure direction and subdued performances.
Still, there’s that closing credit montage, which is inspiring in a way the rest of the film isn’t and sends us off marveling at the grace and gumption of these real-world women.
| Robert W. Butler
