"Misbehaviour" seems a little too British for its own good. It is a bizarre mix of sexism, feminism, paternalism and racism. Unfortunately, some of characters have almost cartoonish feel, while others feels so flat. At one point, story is quite serious and than at another it's almost goofy. Basically, I'm still not sure is this film a comedy, parody or drama? In general, film doesn't follow its narrative journey, while the pacing was a little off. Actually, there are two struggles in motion here - one for gender and one for racial equality - but you get the sense that the film views the latter as an unfortunate inconvenience, a stick in the spokes of a more straightforward story of women vs men that the white woman filmmaker would rather she could spin. One of the biggest problem with this film is that it tries to show events from 1970 through the prism of 21st-century sensibilities, but it doesn't work either in life neither here. Ultimately, "Misbehaviour" sends mixed messages and leaves you yearning for documentary that might better explore its subject and setting. For a movie that was intended to be anti sexist/paternalist/etc it was also weird how some of the 'Miss' characters were presented. For example, Miss Yugoslavia (was presented) as one of the most brainless persons, but maybe director (Philippa Lowthorpe) didn't want to offend other nations yet she could this one because that country stopped to exist in 1990's which was awkward for an anti *ism movie and a very typical British move. It was a pity too that American comedian Bob Hope was demonized so badly, but it's even worst that Greg Kinnear was quite bad at playing him. To conclude, I can't recommend this quirky British film because only (so&so) worthy thing here was maybe last 25 minutes of the movie, especially 'post-credits' scene. To much miss opportunities here. Shame.
Rating: 6-/5
Rating: 6-/5