Misbehaviour, which takes place during and around the 1970 Miss World pageant in London, wears its feminist message on its sleeve, but that doesn’t mean it’s an overly serious examination of the movement for women’s equality. In fact, its buoyant, upbeat tone keeps the movie zipping along, causing the movingly inspirational nature of the story to sneak up on you. So while messages about women’s rights, and to a lesser extent racial equality, are laced throughout this story based on true events, overall, it’s a feel-good experience featuring well-acted, genial characters whose surprised delight in their disruption of the patriarchy is infectious.

Misbehaviour immediately sets up dual storylines that are destined to converge. On the one hand, Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley) is pursuing a degree in history while simultaneously raising a daughter and organizing events for a women’s rights group. On the other, the Miss World competition, the most popular TV show in the world at the time, is drawing closer and the organizers are attempting to maintain high standards of beauty while making small concessions to progress. In this case, that means two Black women will be part of the show: Miss Grenada (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), whose country is competing for the first time, and Miss Africa South (Loreece Harrison), who is added at the last minute to appease protestors objecting to the fact that only White South Africans had previously been allowed to compete.

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Meanwhile, buttoned-up Sally meets Jo Robinson (a delightful Jessie Buckley) who dismisses Sally’s preference for organized social activism but invites her to a participate in a new women’s group. While Sally initially seems uninterested, when her daughter starts imitating the contestants in a TV news story about Miss World with vocal encouragement from her conservative mother Evelyn (a wonderful Phyllis Logan), Sally is so disgusted that such a degrading display is touted as family entertainment that she joins Jo's group.  And soon, she's leading the planning for a protest outside the competition. That is, until she comes up with an even better idea: a group should get into the theater while Miss World is taking place so they can disrupt the proceedings as they happen.

While the movie is blatantly disapproving of the sexism and objectification inherent in Miss World, it also never judges the women who’ve chosen to participate. It’s clear many of the contestants believe Miss World could open up opportunities they might never have otherwise. Meanwhile, the Black contestants are well aware that their inclusion in such a visible event could help young Black girls believe they won’t always be marginalized in favor of White women.

Furthermore, the beauty contestants are never put in conflict with Sally and the women’s movement, who make sure to explain their argument is not with the competitors but with the organizers of the competition. In addition, while Logan’s Evelyn is one of the characters that gives voice to the conservative perspective -- informing her daughter she simply can’t have the same opportunities as men -- she also has one of the movie’s best moments when she starts to smile then laugh as it dawns on her that the reason the Miss World broadcast has temporarily gone off the air is because of her daughter’s actions.

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If anything, throughout the film, it’s the male characters who come across the worst, whether it’s Sally’s fellow scholars, who never let her get a word in edgewise and claim her research on women’s roles isn't worthwhile because it's about minority concerns, or pageant organizer Eric Morley (Rhys Ifans), who focuses on the contestants’ measurements and is oblivious to his wife Julia’s (Keeley Hawes) attempts to emphasize slightly deeper ideas about beauty. Most detestable of all, though, is Miss World host, American comedy legend Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear), who is depicted as a lecherous predator. It’s his retrograde jokes that lead Sally to start the disruption of the Miss World broadcast to Hope's shock and horror.

While the film's treatment of men may turn off some viewers, Misbehaviour is so good-natured that these scenes never come across as angry. Instead, the male characters are largely there to illustrate the attitudes the women, whether participating in Miss World or fighting for women’s equality, had to contend with on a regular basis in 1970 (and often still do). And it’s the women who really matter in this story of a pivotal moment in history. The movie isn’t concerned with being an edgy polemic, making its point about what women are capable of in a quieter and far more diverting way. As a result, by the time the final scenes play out, which show the real women portrayed in the story and highlight their accomplishments in the decades since, the film feels celebratory and poignant. This means Misbehaviour doesn’t function as much of a call to action, nonetheless it may still inspire some viewers to continue these women’s unfinished fight against the patriarchy even as it entertains.

Misbehaviour, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and written by Gaby Chiappe and Rebecca Frayn, stars Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jessie Buckley, Keeley Hawes, Phyllis Logan, Lesley Manville, Rhys Ifans and Greg Kinnear. It will be released in select theaters and on VOD on Friday, Sept. 25.

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