MISBEHAVIOUR
***
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe
Screenwriters: Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe, from an original story by Rebecca Frayn.
Principal cast:
Keira Knightley
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Jessie Buckley
Keeley Hawes
Greg Kinnear
Rhys Ifans
Country: UK/France
Classification: M
Runtime: 106 mins.
Australian release date: 26 November 2020.
Based on a true story, Philippa Lowthorpe’s Misbehaviour is about the interruption of the 1970 Miss World competition by a group of protesting women. It was the beginning of the sexual revolution and the startling protest boosted the profile of the nascent Women’s Liberation Movement, which gained overnight recognition by disrupting the broadcast (at the time, Miss World was an event watched by a 100 million television viewers around the globe). It was also a defining moment in changing the Western ideal of beauty, as it was the first time that a black woman was the winner. Have times changed? Well, yes and no. While it is now commonplace for women of colour to win Miss World, the fight for women’s rights and the battle against sexism goes on, five decades later - in 2020, women still don’t have equal pay. As a card at the end of Misbehaviour says: ‘Attempts to bring down the patriarchy remain ongoing.’
Frayn and Chiappe’s screenplay focuses on two main groups, the women’s libbers and the contestants, contrasting their differing approaches to the pageant. For the liberationists, it was oppressive and chauvinistic and abusive of women. As one of the group, Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley), declares in an interview, “Why should any woman have to earn her place in the world by looking a particular way?” For many of the contestants, however, the competition was seen as an opportunity not usually afforded to women like them. Miss Grenada, Jennifer Hosten (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), one of only two black women in the event, says to a fellow competitor, “If I win there will be little girls who might start to believe they have a place in the world.” These two threads interweave throughout the plot, criss-crossing each other, neither one given prominence over the other. It’s a delicate balance but it’s perhaps a bit too polite, leaving the result somewhat pallid. There are a couple of sub-plots wefting through the warp, too – the marriages of the Morleys, Eric (Rhys Ifans) and Julia (Keeley Hawes), the organisers of Miss World, and the Hopes, Bob (Greg Kinnear) and Dolores (Lesley Manville). Bob Hope was the host of the broadcast, much to his wife’s chagrin, because he was a notorious womaniser; Eric Morley had created the first Miss World competition in 1951 and his thinking hadn’t changed much since. As his wife put it, “Sometimes I think, for Eric, it will forever be the 1950s.” Examining the mindsets of the two dinosaurs allows the scriptwriters to show just how sexist prevailing attitudes were in 1970, something that may come as a shock to today’s audiences.
If this all sounds a little heavy-going, it isn’t. Lowthorpe has chosen to play lightly with the material and much of Misbehaviour is very funny. There are many terrific performances (Jessie Buckley as feminist firebrand Jo Robinson is very good) and the production values bring the ‘70s to life with authenticity. As well as women playing the leading roles, the production boasted an equally strong female crew. Co-producer Suzanne Mackie says, “We were determined to bring as many women as possible to key crew roles and generally we managed to achieve this with most of heads of department being female.” The director adds, “It was very important to me that we had a mixed crew and that we had as many women working on this project as possible. That was a real pleasure. There are still very few women who get to make films or have their voices out there, so it was a real delight for me to be able to make [Misbehaviour]. There is still a lot of prejudice in the film industry towards women directors.” In other words, the film industry is much like life in general for women. Despite some advances since 1970, there’s still a long way to go, sisters!
Screenwriters: Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe, from an original story by Rebecca Frayn.
Principal cast:
Keira Knightley
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Jessie Buckley
Keeley Hawes
Greg Kinnear
Rhys Ifans
Country: UK/France
Classification: M
Runtime: 106 mins.
Australian release date: 26 November 2020.
Based on a true story, Philippa Lowthorpe’s Misbehaviour is about the interruption of the 1970 Miss World competition by a group of protesting women. It was the beginning of the sexual revolution and the startling protest boosted the profile of the nascent Women’s Liberation Movement, which gained overnight recognition by disrupting the broadcast (at the time, Miss World was an event watched by a 100 million television viewers around the globe). It was also a defining moment in changing the Western ideal of beauty, as it was the first time that a black woman was the winner. Have times changed? Well, yes and no. While it is now commonplace for women of colour to win Miss World, the fight for women’s rights and the battle against sexism goes on, five decades later - in 2020, women still don’t have equal pay. As a card at the end of Misbehaviour says: ‘Attempts to bring down the patriarchy remain ongoing.’
Frayn and Chiappe’s screenplay focuses on two main groups, the women’s libbers and the contestants, contrasting their differing approaches to the pageant. For the liberationists, it was oppressive and chauvinistic and abusive of women. As one of the group, Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley), declares in an interview, “Why should any woman have to earn her place in the world by looking a particular way?” For many of the contestants, however, the competition was seen as an opportunity not usually afforded to women like them. Miss Grenada, Jennifer Hosten (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), one of only two black women in the event, says to a fellow competitor, “If I win there will be little girls who might start to believe they have a place in the world.” These two threads interweave throughout the plot, criss-crossing each other, neither one given prominence over the other. It’s a delicate balance but it’s perhaps a bit too polite, leaving the result somewhat pallid. There are a couple of sub-plots wefting through the warp, too – the marriages of the Morleys, Eric (Rhys Ifans) and Julia (Keeley Hawes), the organisers of Miss World, and the Hopes, Bob (Greg Kinnear) and Dolores (Lesley Manville). Bob Hope was the host of the broadcast, much to his wife’s chagrin, because he was a notorious womaniser; Eric Morley had created the first Miss World competition in 1951 and his thinking hadn’t changed much since. As his wife put it, “Sometimes I think, for Eric, it will forever be the 1950s.” Examining the mindsets of the two dinosaurs allows the scriptwriters to show just how sexist prevailing attitudes were in 1970, something that may come as a shock to today’s audiences.
If this all sounds a little heavy-going, it isn’t. Lowthorpe has chosen to play lightly with the material and much of Misbehaviour is very funny. There are many terrific performances (Jessie Buckley as feminist firebrand Jo Robinson is very good) and the production values bring the ‘70s to life with authenticity. As well as women playing the leading roles, the production boasted an equally strong female crew. Co-producer Suzanne Mackie says, “We were determined to bring as many women as possible to key crew roles and generally we managed to achieve this with most of heads of department being female.” The director adds, “It was very important to me that we had a mixed crew and that we had as many women working on this project as possible. That was a real pleasure. There are still very few women who get to make films or have their voices out there, so it was a real delight for me to be able to make [Misbehaviour]. There is still a lot of prejudice in the film industry towards women directors.” In other words, the film industry is much like life in general for women. Despite some advances since 1970, there’s still a long way to go, sisters!