Misbehaviour (Review)

The Miss World competition of 1970 is a fascinating moment in history. It is a landmark event due to the first victory by a woman of colour; due to including a woman of colour as a contestant from South Africa (who placed second) and due to the entire event being overshadowed by a feminist protest group – who audaciously interrupted the show during its live television stream. This confluence of events opens up a rich dialogue about women’s rights and the nature of feminism. Was the women’s liberation movement was truly working for the liberation of all women? Can patriarchal institutions still, due to their wider influence, create great feminist victories for underrepresented (and oppressed) communities – victories that could be silenced by the work of a vocal feminist movement at the time that was (as presented in the film) overwhelmingly white?

This all being the case, you can see why this story has been adapted. Unfortunately, the film never really grapples with this central conflict and instead overtly focuses on the Miss World protesters – specifically Sally Alexander (as portrayed by Keira Knightley). This choice creates a clear imbalance to the narrative, where the roles of women of colour are sidelined and under explored. Annoyingly, Knightley is one of the least compelling parts of the film – yet gets the majority of the screen time. She would have worked fine as a supporting performance (though the performance itself is not amazing) but, as the primary focus, she just isn’t hugely compelling – mostly due to the fact that everybody else is. Her fellow protester, Jo Robinson, is played fantastically by Jessie Buckley. Yes, her role (a free-wheeling radical) is much more exciting in general but this makes it even stranger that the film isn’t more focused on her. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is also absolutely excellent, a mesmeric and accomplished performance, as Jennifer Hosten (Miss Grenada) but is severely underused to an even greater extent. She doesn’t appear until about half an hour into the film and her background and context remains under explored – and pretty much ignored – for the rest of the movie. It is also worth noting that people of colour only exist as extras – that don’t speak – up until this point (and there aren’t many of them). For what should be a film about the need to recognise women of colour when considering the rights of women (in other words, being intersectional), the actual filmmaking – and narrative structure – doesn’t do this. The result is more of a story about soft, middle class rebellion – told from the uncontroversial, moderate point of view of Keira Knightley’s Sally Alexander. This is even established in the opening shot of the film: we are confronted with Keira Knightley’s eyes and it is through her eyes that we see the film. Yes, it establishes a female gaze but it is a specifically white female gaze.

These structural choices don’t only impact the politics of the film, they also disrupt the pacing. The story around the inclusion of two candidates from South Africa is fascinating and worthy of exploration. It is, however, pretty much merely alluded to. We have Loreece Harrison as Pearl Jansen (Miss ‘Africa South’), somebody who made history but is somewhat silenced by the film. To an extent, this reflects her treatment and the attempts to silence her but the film verges too much into just doing the thing it should be criticising, due to narrative choices. In general, the unbalanced focus, which shifts away from the two primary women of colour, means that the victorious moment has very little impact. So little of the debate around beauty and race is shown that it doesn’t seem like a landmark achievement when these characters succeed. They are the characters the camera has focused on, when it is spending time covering Miss World contestants, and they are the characters that win. It seemed destined from the start – even with vague attempts to position somebody else as the favourite. The issue here is not the performances, it is the literal structure of the film which makes everything but the protesters feel like a side story – the B plot to their A plot. This also means that the most fascinating part of the entire story – the ethical debate around Miss World’s impact, how it can be deeply patriarchal yet still achieve an important feminist moment – is not capitalised upon; it simply isn’t the focus of the film. The central focus always remains on the less radical elements, the more mainstream and accessible – in a traditional sense.

The same is true of the overall filmmaking. Misbehaviour is well put together and mostly compelling (aside from the protracted first act which focuses almost entirely on Sally Alexander’s background at the expense of time that should be spent elsewhere to allow the narrative to work better). However, it is very conventional. It is all unchallenging and accessible filmmaking which, by itself, opens up an interesting debate about how to cater to an expected audience. This very traditional, and safe, approach allows the movie to speak to a wider audience of moviegoers (who will not be alienated by it at all) but it also ensure that it is not challenging that wider audience. The film does mollify and does present a very safe style of rebellion. The end credits may allude to how the struggle against the patriarchy continues, which it certainly does, but the targets of feminist outrage in this film are very traditional and obvious (though still very deserving). Yes, it is all true (with embellishments) but there is a notable omission of specific experiences that again leads back to a lack of intersectionality in a film that should be about that. A lot of the film is about how the patriarchy affects educated, middle-class women (not always, the protest group has some class variance but their stories are not the ones that are explored or fleshed out – only Alexander’s) who are primarily white. And while the effects are real, the overt focus masks a more nuanced conversation. It’s a very safe and, once again, accessible portrait of sexism that speaks to the intended audience perhaps too directly. The white-centric feminism of the 70s was definitely a thing but it should not exist, in the film, in a way that is so unchallenged. Also, on a pure filmmaking point, it is always a shame to see a film about radical ideas that is so straightforward in its execution. This is conventional, light touch filmmaking – to the extent that the director’s history in TV is unsurprising. The presentation of women is excellent, and is to be celebrated, but the film is universally unchallenging – both in form and in content.

This all being said, there is still a lot to like here. Misbehaviour is yet another wittily written and enjoyable period piece about social issues. It joins the ranks of Made in Dagenham and Pride, among others (though Pride is significantly superior), but perhaps feels too at home in those ranks. Apparently, the journey to adapt this narrative has been about a decade and the end result is a film that feels about a decade old. A lot has changed in that time in regards to equality and representation and this film hasn’t quite caught up. But, this being said, it is still a well put together and informative film about an interesting time period. The use of the female lens is excellent and there are subtleties in how it universally portrays its female characters as limited by the patriarchy (just some get more attention than others). Unfortunately, the decision to make it a Keira Knightley film, as opposed to a fractured narrative that explored a number of perspectives, is inherently limiting. It is limiting because she is not very compelling but, more importantly, it is limiting because of the political implications of this choice. Fundamentally, there is a fascinating topic at the core of this film, and it is a challenging one. However, the film is not willing to engage with this challenge and comes off as merely a pleasingly diverting introduction to a much deeper topic.

Disclaimer: a close friend of mine, Jessie Leong, was involved in this film (playing the role of ‘Miss Philippines’). However, if you want to see a superior example of her work, please watch her short film ‘Banana Skin,’ (and read my analysis of it), which – in under four minutes – manages to be a much more challenging and engaging film about both race and gender (it’s rather fantastic).

In addition to this, my viewing of the film was as part of a Q&A with Jessie hosted by Emma Bryning, whose informed, feminist perspective on the film greatly enhanced my understanding of the film’s politics.