Misbehaviour is a historical drama film directed by Phillipa Lowthorpe. The people revolves around the 1970 Miss World competition and the actions of a branch of the Female Liberation Movement to disrupt it and show the eyes of the world the harm the competition is doing to society.
This one is a little politics heavy, right from the off, so if that isn’t your thing don’t watch it.
Personally, I think this film makes a lot of great points about society and the balance of the sexes. It shows us the audience the predatory nature of these competitions and how the woman are treated like meat. The scene when all of the girls have to turn around in their swimming costumes and the mostly male judges spent an awfully long time staring at their arses at it is an uncomfortable scene.
This film makes you question society and the messages it creates: because competitions like Miss World were aimed at a family audience, so you would have little girls watching it and thinking the only way a woman can have value is to be pretty; which is a bad message obviously. This film really begs the question to beauty pageants and competitions have a place in 2020?
Keira Knightly as Sally Alexander is commendable, she is one of the most underrated actors working today, turning in solid performance after solid performance. This film also features Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Jennifer Hosten aka Miss Grenada, Mbatha- Raw does a great job in this film and has a strong presences throughout, her character was the first non-white winner of the Miss World Competition, and her ending serves as a true inspiration; also the conversation she has with Sally about representation vs change is fascinating to think about.
This film has Greg Kinnear as Bob Hope, as I suppose the villain of the film, he is hateable from the moment he appears on screen and when his performance get cut short it feels like a true victory.
Overall, this is an important film as watching it forces us to consider elements and aspects from our society we might not otherwise think about, this film presents us with the lessons of the past and asks us to learn from them.
Pros.
Knightly.
Mbatha-Raw.
The Message.
Something to think about.
Cons.
It is a little long and could be trimmed down a bit.
4/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 