Misbehaviour 2020

Sally Alexander, Keira Knightley is a history student at University College London who is eager to understand how the past shapes the present. At a conference on women’s rights, she meets Jo Robinson, Jessie Buckley, a passionate feminist organizer who fights for visibility and change. After helping Jo dodge arrest for defacing a sexist billboard, Jo invites Sally to join her women’s group, where Sally helps shape the group’s messaging and media strategy for a planned protest at the 1970 Miss World pageant in London. The event is being presented by American comedian Bob Hope, Greg Kinnear, whose involvement is controversial inside his own household, particularly with Dolores, who disapproves of his affair with the pageant’s 1961 winner.

As the Miss World contestants arrive, the lineup includes Pearl Jansen (Miss Africa South) and Jennifer Hosten (Miss Grenada). Jennifer and Pearl connect over their shared experiences of racism, while Jennifer befriends Marjorie Johansson (Miss Sweden), the audience’s favorite who feels demeaned and exploited by the competition. Frustrated by the casual sexism she encounters at university, Sally devises a plan to disrupt the live television broadcast by mingling with the crowd. Several group members volunteer and purchase audience tickets. Pearl privately confides to Jennifer that apartheid-era South Africa warned her that she wouldn’t be allowed to return home if she spoke out about the treatment of Black South Africans. Sally’s personal life also comes under strain as her mother questions the toll activism takes on Sally’s daughter and her relationship with Gareth.

A car bomb, attributed to an anarchist group, explodes outside the theatre hosting the event. Despite Gareth’s pleas for Sally to abort the protest, she and Jo press ahead. The pageant proceeds with contestants, the audience, organizers, and Hope crossing a precarious picket line of protestors. Hope opens the show with a volley of sexist quips. The judging panel reduces the field to seven finalists, among them Pearl and Jennifer. Jo and Sally’s group noisily interrupts with heckling and a flour bomb aimed at the stage. The two women are arrested, the broadcast is briefly halted, and then resumes. In a turning moment, Jennifer is crowned Miss World, the first woman of color to win, while Pearl takes second place. Behind the scenes, Sally is taken away by police and has a tense exchange with Jennifer about the protests.

The film’s epilogue sketches the later paths of the key figures: Jennifer goes on to study Political Science and International Relations and becomes Grenada’s High Commissioner to Canada; Sally becomes Professor of Modern History at the University of London; Jo gives birth five months after the competition and later trains as a midwife; Pearl returns to South Africa and pursues a singing career after the fall of Apartheid. The protest is portrayed as a significant ripple that helped bring the women’s liberation movement into broader public view. The closing note emphasizes the ongoing struggle with the line: > “Attempts to bring down the patriarchy remain ongoing.”