A Dangerous Method: movie review
The friendship and ensuing rift between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) is the heart of David Cronenberg鈥檚 鈥�A Dangerous Method,鈥� a surprisingly tame and talky period piece from a director best known for his high-art gruesomeness (鈥�The Fly,鈥� 鈥淒ead Ringers鈥�). The talkiness derives from screenwriter Christopher Hampton鈥檚 play 鈥淭he Talking Cure,鈥� which in turn is based on John Kerr鈥檚 1994 non-fiction book 鈥淎 Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Freud, Jung and Sabina Spielrein.鈥�
Spielrein, played by Keira Knightley, was a Russian-Jewish woman originally under the care of Jung in 1904 at the Burgholzi hospital outside Zurich. Using Freud鈥檚 methods, he was able to eliminate her seizures and hysteria. Though married, he also entered into an affair with her. Spurned by him, she became a patient of Freud鈥檚, eventually becoming a prominent psychoanalyst in her own right. There鈥檚 a lesson to be learned here somewhere, if you can find it.
The casting of Fassbender and Mortensen is certainly offbeat. (A hypothetical ad line might read: 鈥淧sychoanalysis just got hunky!") The performers are proficient at playing historical figures without turning into waxworks, especially Mortensen, whose sly enactment of Freud鈥檚 low-key superciliousness is the film鈥檚 highlight. His best moment comes when he and Jung are about to arrive by ocean liner in New York to attend a conference and Freud chuckles, 鈥淒o you think they know we鈥檙e on our way, bringing them the plague?鈥�
Low point would be Knightley鈥檚 hysterical opening sequences in which she appears to be trying to trying to contort herself into a Moebius strip. Overacting this gross can only have been enabled by a director. Didn鈥檛 Cronenberg look at the rushes? Or did he think he was back in 鈥淒ead Ringers鈥� territory? Knightley鈥檚 performance calms down eventually, and a good thing, too. If she maintained that early pace, she would have burned up the couch and herself along with it. Grade: B- (Rated R for sexual content and brief language.)
