Misbehaviour

A team of women hatches a plan to disrupt the 1970 Miss World beauty competition in London.

Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley star in this charming film about feminist protesters who disrupt the world's best known beauty pageant Miss World.

There's a very British sort of wackiness to this bizarre and farcical true story from the annals of pop culture told here with charm and fun.

It's the 1970 Miss World contest which erupted in controversy and feminist protest winding up with host Bob Hope covered in flour the BBC covered in embarrassment and the fledgling women's liberation movement covered in glory. If there is a tonal uncertainty in this comedy then that's because there was a tonal uncertainty in the real-life events and the movie nicely conveys how they were at one and the same time deadly serious and Pythonically silly.

Genre: Comedy Drama

Starring: Keira Knightley Jessie Buckley Rhys Ifans Greg Kinnear.
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe (Swallows & Amazons)

Misbehaviour | Official Trailer

Official Trailer | Netflix

REVIEW: Misbehaviour

Misbehaviour has a cracking true story to share with us: one that took place five decades ago but is just as relevant today.

Why the movies took so long to get around to telling it is immediately apparent. What occurred at the 1970 staging of the Miss World beauty pageant in London requires some nuanced explanation and a lot of information to be fired at the viewer.

That is if the movie is to be done right. And for the most part Misbehaviour conveys the political turmoil the sexism the racism and the utter absurdity of the event in all its garish glory.

If you don't know the full details of what transpired at Miss World 1970 keep it that way until you see the movie.

All you really need to know is that a prototype version of what would soon become the Women's Liberation Movement had a certain form of protest in mind for the live global telecast of the Miss World Pageant.

The chief organisers were divorced mother and aspiring academic Sally Alexander (a fine anchoring performance by Keira Knightley) and fulltime rabblerouser Jo Robinson (Jessie Buckley).

As a worldwide audience of over a billion looked on these pioneering feminist agitators executed something that remains more audacious daring and kind of silly than anyone would dare try today.

Among those mortally embarrassed by the stunt were the special guest star famous comedian Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear) and notoriously sexist Miss World supremo Eric Morley (Rhys Ifans).

Though Misbehaviour is a bit slow to warm up its heated finale proves well worth the wait.

Same goes for a superb closing credits sequence where we get to see what became of both the protesters and the contestants in the decades that followed.

LEIGH PAATSCH Review - HeraldSun