STRIKING A BLOW (MISBEHAVIOUR)

 

There are many things that were popular in Britain during the 1970s and 80s that just make me cringe.

Take food, for example. 

Does anyone hanker these days for Angel Delight, Smash powdered potato or liver pate arranged in the shape of a pineapple? 

It was a terrible era too for fashion - maxidresses, bell bottoms, platform shoes and donkey jackets and also very, very dodgy hairstyles.

Wood panels, linoleum floors and shag carpeting were common sights in many homes.

TV shows like 'The Black and White Minstrel Show' and racist sitcoms like 'Love Thy Neighbour' and 'Mind Your Language' were somehow deemed acceptable and just somehow make your toes curl today.

The causal racism and sexism of "comedians" like Benny Hill, Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning is embarrassing.

Even comic geniuses like Spike Mulligan were guilty, with sketches featuring scantily clad women and Pakistani Daleks.

Then, there was the undignified spectacle of televised beauty contests like Miss Great Britain and Miss World which treated women like cattle in the parade ring of an agricultural show.

First broadcast by the BBC in 1959, its heyday was undoubtedly in the two decades that followed, commanding some of the biggest TV audiences of the year.

At its height, around 18 million people tuned in to watch Miss World in the UK.

The competition, however, had its critics - not least in the fledgling British feminist movement.

And now that story has made it to the big screen - although it has mostly been seen on the small screen, thanks to Covid.

'Misbehaviour,' Philippa Lowthorpe's second feature as a director, focusses on the efforts by women's liberation protesters to disrupt the 1970s Miss World contest.

Flour bombs, stink bombs and water pistols were used to register disgust at the staging of the contest.

All of this could make for very earnest viewing.

Lowthorpe and her screenwriters, Gaby Chiappe and Rebecca Frayn, however, take the same kind of light hearted approach that Matthew Warchus adopted in his 2014 film 'Pride' about lesbian and gay rights activists supporting communities during the Miners' Strike.

At the beginning of Lowthorpe's movie, Keira Knightley's Sally Alexander sits before a panel of male academics arguing her case for a place at university in London.

The panel appear to sneer at her past as an acting student and her present status as left wing activist and a divorced mother.

Sally leaves the interview deflated, doubting she has been successful.

However she does land a place, much to the delight of her partner, John Heffernan's Gareth Stedman Jones.

While attending the launch of the Women's Liberation movement in Oxford, she comes across Jessie Buckley's bolshy activist Jo Robinson and her friends placing a banana skin on the head of a statue, in a light hearted poke at the patriarchy.

Sally remonstrates with Jo who mistakenly assumes she is an Oxbridge student and accuses her of desperately trying to get a seat at the table of the patriarchy.

Later, while heading to university in London, she spies Jo defacing a billboard ad, spraying a feminist slogan on it but she has to run to her rescue, warning her about two police constables approaching.

The officers pursue Jo and Sally but they manage to give them a slip.

Jo invites Sally to the meetings of her feminist group but continues to make light of her middle class roots 

Meanwhile Rhys Ifans and Keeley Hawes' Eric and Julia Morley are preparing for the 1970 Miss World contest in London and wooing Greg Kinnear's Bob Hope as their guest star.

They manage to secure his services, much to the annoyance of Hope's wife, Lesley Manville's Dolores.

She had previously made him swear never to take part again in the event after he had an affair with the winner, taking her back to Hollywood with him.

Under pressure from Luke Thompson's anti-Apartheid campaigner Peter Hain to pull South Africa out of the contest, Eric decides there will be two competitors from the country instead - one white and one black.

Grenada has also entered the competition for the first time, with Gugu Mbatha Raw's calm and collected air hostess, Jennifer Hosten, who aspires to be a broadcaster, chosen to represent the tiny Carribbean state.

Clara Rosager's Miss Sweden Marjorie Johansson is the bookies' favourite and commands the most media attention but is irritated by the whole publicity circus around the contest.

Loreece Harrison's Miss Africa South, Pearl Jansen and Emma Corrine's white Miss South Africa, Jillian Jessup also attract a lot of attention at a press call, while Suki Waterhouse's ambitious Miss USA, Sandra Wolsfeld revels in the whole experience.

Sitting at home with her middle class mum, Phyllis Logan's Evelyn Alexander who lectures her for letting Gareth do the cooking, Sally is appalled when she catches her young daughter aping the pouts and poses of the Miss World contestants after a news item on TV.

What's worse, Evelyn evem encourages her granddaughter to accept that notion of beauty - even applying lipstick to her later in the film.

Thus prompts Sally to take up Jo's invitation to attend a meeting of her feminist group and propose that they infiltrate the Miss World Show, purchasing tickets so they can disrupt the show.

What follows is a feminist take on the caper movie, with Sally, Jo, Alexa Davies' Sue, Lily Newmark's Jane and Ruby Bentall's Sarah even staking out the venue to observe the comings and goings of Eric Morley and the other organisers.

The script that Chiappe and Frayn have produced is a curious mix - taking a light, comedic approach to sometimes heavy issues.

Sexism and sometimes racism rear their heaf and while the characters sometimes feel like cyphers for various elements of the feminist movement or the ills of the patriarchy, there is a surprisingly more nuanced approach to the story of Hosten and some of her fellow contestants.

An ensemble piece like 'Misbehaviour' requires strong lead and supporting performances and Lowthorpe comfortably delivers them.

Knightley is well cast as the bourgeois activist Sally, although Buckley probably steals the show as the more anti-establishment Jo.

Mbatha Raw is excellent as Hosten, who is the coolest customer onscreen, maintaing a quiet dignity during the bizarre rehearsals for the Miss World contest that Eric Morley orchestrated and  amid all the brouhaha that eventually erupts.

Ifans and Hawes are particularly entertaining as the Morleys and there is a nice turn from Miles Jupp as their inept assistant, Clive.

Davies, Newmark and Bentall enjoy their roles as caper movie feminist activists.

Harrison, Corrine, Waterhouse and Rosager bring a lot of heart to their roles as Miss World contestants.

Logan is also effective as Sally's conservative mum.

The always excellent Manville, however, seems underused.

And if you can get beyond the weird looking prosthetic nose, Kinnear's performance as a dislikeable, Bob Hope is suitably smarmy. 

Sometimes Chiappe and Frayn work too hard - as in the scene where Hosten and Alexander have a chance encounter in the ladies.

But with its blending of themes and feisty performances, at least 'Misbehaviour' shows a lot more ambition than the don't rock the boat approach of that other 2020 female led ensemble piece 'Military Wives'.

As a glimpse into the fledgling days of the British feminist movement, 'Misbehaviour' is a good entry point into understanding that story.

But it is also far more entertaining than 'Misbehaviour' which ultimately for a film of this kind is exactly what you need.

('Misbehaviour' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on March 13, 2020 and was available on video on demand services on April 15, 2020 before securing a DVD release on September 7, 2020)