Details
Leads: Keira Knightley Viggo Mortensen Michael Fassbender Vincent Cassel
Director: David Cronenberg
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Run-Time: 99 minutes
Rating: R for sexual content
Short Description: Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A Dangerous Method. Jung's weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina's spell.
Review 1
Kimberley Jones
Hear the words "David Cronenberg" paired with "erotic drama," and you might feel a sudden shudder of unease, thinking back on the Canadian filmmaker's earlier works like Crash or Dead Ringers. This isn't that kind of Cronenberg picture, however. In fact, it's a period piece about the origins of psychoanalysis and the sexual confusions of its progenitors that is eloquent and handsomely made, if never quite revelatory.
Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own play The Talking Cure (which was itself based on John Kerr's nonfiction work A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein), the film opens with a Russian emigré named Sabina (Knightley) in howling, seizuring distress, being taken against her will to a Zurich psychiatric hospital. She doesn't know it yet, but her life will in large part be defined by her shuttling between Zurich, the home of Carl Jung (Fassbender), her doctor and eventual lover, and Vienna, the home of Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), who once thought of Jung as his "son and heir."
Fathers and sons, both literal and figurative, are a recurring theme in Hampton's script, but the key figure of the film turns out to be Sabina, whose yearning for sexual humiliation breaks down some of the upright Jung's repressions.
(Pre-Sabina, he has a habit of overflowing his dinner plate and oversalting his food, suggesting certain appetites not yet fulfilled.) Sabina's influence loosens Jung from the rigors of Freud's strictly scientific method and nudges him toward a more speculative approach - the film positions her squarely at the center of Jung and Freud's famous break - so it seems apropos that out of a terrific ensemble (including Vincent Cassel's mischievous turn as a hedonist doctor-turned-patient), Knightley emerges as the one you're guaranteed to chatter about after the movie. To dramatize Sabina's troubled state at the sanatorium, Knightley stitches together a synthesis of physical tics - trembling, bared teeth, beaten-dog shrinkings, and a clenched jaw that juts so hard one worries the actress might pop a blood vessel in her brain - and even as Sabina recovers, the ghosts of those tics remain, controlled but not entirely conquered. It's a very particular performance, one that takes some getting used to, but I was rather taken with it.
Review 2
by Chris Rebholz
David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method is a film that grows on you the more you think about it; even considering the filmmaker's recent efforts, it is a picture that you keep waiting to get going, but it never quite does; however it nestles itself into your mind, where its oddness and intricacies continue to resonate long after the credits have rolled. The filmmaker clearly could have gone with the usual big effects, sensual shots of our main cast, and intense drama. But instead he chose a more refined route, which by the final shots, leaves you re-evaluating everything that transpired prior.
What it does have, at its center, is a performance by Keira Knightley that is incredible in its depth and power. The picture opens with a howl from her, a lengthy cry of heartache and pain as her character Sabrina Speilrein is brought to an asylum, where she becomes a test case for young Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his new style of treatment inspired by the well-known Sigmund Freud, which he calls "the talking cure." There will be no unorthodox treatment as seen in the past, "just talk." Even the act of talking is difficult for Speilrein, and Knightley does a remarkable job in these first few scenes, as she forces the words out of her character's mouth in believable stutters and tortured fits. It is certainly not a subdued performance and it shouldn't be, but there are subtleties to it: the small movements of her body while she is being treated (always shot from behind her) to the way her eyes smolder with an intense fury.
Her treatment is a success, and Jung soon finds himself keeping the company of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) in a performance that almost became something akin to humorous at time; he is never without his cigar and at one point he is able to pull a laugh from the audience with a well-timed "Ah." Freud decides that with Jung's success he may be ready for something more challenging and sends him a therapist-turned-patient (Otto Gross) who finds devilish pleasure in relating to the doctor how he goes about seducing his patients. The timing of this situation could be better for Jung who is becoming more and more attracted to the charms of Sabrina, much to the delight of Otto.
The lead up to Sabrina's appearance and her eventual dalliance with Jung seem to come quite quickly, it feels like Cronenberg rushed his way to these plot points. But even with that rushed sense of timing, Cronenberg does a superb job of sculpting an excellent narrative and drawing beautiful performances from his actors. He is clearly an expert filmmaker who knows exactly what he wants from each shot and had no problem interpreting the screenplay. The obvious rivalry between Jung and Freud simmers to a slow boil, as jealousy, sex and mental stimuli become tangled for everyone.
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