As Alfred Kinsey gathered information for his pioneering study of human sexuality, the question his subjects inevitably struggled with was that of normalcy. “Am I normal?” asked the young wife, innocent of the notion of foreplay, who found intercourse impossible. “Am I normal?” fretted the onanist, the lesbian, and anyone who did anything with their privates that failed to produce babies or conform to local erotic custom. By “normal,” they meant “natural,” and of the two fields of knowledge that define the idea of “natural,” religion and science, the latter had barely begun to acknowledge it had a say in the matter.

The publication in 1948 of Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” (followed by a volume devoted to the human female) answered many a question of normalcy with a resounding “yes.” Here was white-hot information set down as cold, statistical fact. With a frequency no one had suspected – or at least publicly talked about – masturbation existed, homosexuality existed, premarital sex existed. All manner of non-procreative sex flourished behind closed doors. Depending on how you look at things, this was either the beginning of a world-historical liberation or a crowbar-crack to Pandora’s box.

Due in no small part to Kinsey’s research, the question of normalcy is not as much with as it was in the 1940s. Or rather, as the lavender citizens of our two-tone nation have lately been reminded, the question is very much still with us, only it has been transformed. Having been dragged out of the shadows, the question of normalcy is less a question directed at oneself than an accusation leveled by others: To judge by 11 state ballot initiatives passed in the recent election, “you are not normal” remains as popular as ever. And so “Kinsey,” a numbingly conventional biopic about a nerd who died half a century ago, is as relevant to the year’s cultural agitations as anything in Michael Moore’s camcorder.

Written and directed by Bill Condon (“Gods and Monsters”), and starring an entire Oscar ceremony’s worth of notable actors, “Kinsey” introduces us to its subject (Liam Neeson) in his boyhood. Wee Kinsey dutifully attends his father’s (John Lithgow) lectures on the immorality of telephones and zippers, then trots off into the woods to collect insects and fondle himself. Once matured into a Harvard-educated professor of zoology, he goes to teach at Indiana University and moves on to fondling Clara McMillen (Laura Linney), a protofeminist student, whom he marries.

Kinsey’s exhaustive study of the gall wasp triggers his curiosity about human difference. Surprised at the depths of campus ignorance about sex, he begins to teach a shockingly progressive (and wildly popular) course on “marriage,” complete with the naughtiest slideshow ever to raise a blush in Bloomington. Thus does his infamous inquiry take root. Surrounding himself with handsome young assistants (including Chris O’Donnell and Timothy Hutton), Kinsey begins to slide slowly up the Kinsey scale, leading to an affair with guiltless bisexual Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard).

Kinsey is vaulted to the forefront of national consciousness, and acclaim, controversy, and marital trouble ensue. Mr. Condon touches on certain ethical snags within “the project” (rampant wife-swapping among the minions, sex film “research”) and deficiencies in his hero’s character (stubbornness, insensitivity, monomania), but he’s more interested in valorizing the rationality of his subject than examining the thorniness of its horniness.

Aside from a handful of scenes between Kinsey, Clara, and Clyde, whose mutual understanding is affectingly nuanced, “Kinsey” barely gets to second base. The performances work fine enough, given the earnest thickness of script. Mr. Condon’s direction is no more than functional; an animated research montage shouts his limitation as a stylist. A very good cinematographer (Frederick Elmes) does very mediocre work, and a clever composer (Carter Burwell) leans unimaginatively on his string section.

Sophisticated kink notwithstanding, this must be the squarest movie ever made about a sexual revolutionary. Yet that’s part of the point. Kinsey was no radical. With the guilelessness of a biology geek and the curiosity of a Boy Scout, he merely exposed the radical ignorance of his times.

***

Alienated Arthouse Asians cavort with an inscrutably metaphoric jellyfish in the nebulous waters of “Bright Future,” a disappointment from the talented Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Life drones on for Mamoru (Tadanobu Asano ) and Yuji (Joe Ogadiri), disaffected 20-somethings who mope around their blue-collar job in deconstructed Belgian sweaters. When their boss (Takashi Sasano) takes too keen an interest in “being down” with the young ones, Mamoru murders him. From jail, he instructs Yuji on the proper care of his exquisite pet jellyfish, which promptly escapes its tank and runs silently, luminously amok in the local waterway.

Mr. Kurosawa cuts a millisecond before the beat of any given image, lending a mildly arresting syncopation to his under motivated meander through generational malaise. Earlier this year, discussing the context of the “Film Comment Selects” series, I guessed “Bright Future” was a “pause en route to the next great Kurosawa film.” And so it was. His unclassifiable “Doppelganger,” briefly screened this summer at Anthology Film Archives, picks up the arty J-horror strategies of “Cure” and “Pulse” and rewires them into a deadpan avant-garde remake of “Short Circuit.” The all-region DVD crowd should suss it out posthaste; everyone else, keep your fingers crossed for proper distribution.