A Dangerous Method (2012)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lblzHkoNn3Q

 

Dir: David Cronenberg

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen,  Keira Knightley

                David Cronenberg returns with a film adapted from a stage play about sex and psychoanalysis.

                Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) is a Doctor working in Psychoanalysis. He is delivered a patient Sabina Speilrein (Kiera Knightley), a disturbed woman who has deep seated problems with sex and arousal. Jung attempts to cure her with the ‘talking cure’, an early form of therapy. He also meets and strikes up a friendship with the father of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). However, their relationship falls apart as Speilrein comes between them.

                Cronenberg moves still further away from the body horrors, such as Videodrome and The Fly, which he started with and which made his name. Though there are no scenes of skin splitting, the film still carries some of his usual themes, such as the fascination with the body, just not in such a visceral way as before. The film has an interesting story to tell, with it concerning the great names in psychoanalysis who started off the practice which is now such a part of many people’s lives.  You’d think that this would lend itself to a very interesting and enlightening film as I imagine it is a part of medical history which not a lot of people know about. Unfortunately the film doesn’t really do anything with its subject matter.

                The cast all put in good performances. Fassbender and Mortensen are great as per usual and Knightley does well once you get past her accent and the beginning where she oddly shoves her jaw out like an ejecting cash register. The always great Vincent Cassel also turns up as Otto Gross, a man who believes that people should do what they like and who plants the seed in Jung’s mind to embark on an affair with Speilrein. The ensuing affair, which causes a rift in the bromance between Jung and Freud, never really creates the drama that you wish it should. The relationship between Jung and Freud is the more interesting one, their relationship coming undone not only because of the affair but because of Freud’s feelings towards Jung’s wealth and religion. However, we don’t get to see enough of it and for a lot of the running time, the two characters are separated.

                A disappointing film which should have been so much better and interesting than it is. Good performances appear but not much else. Makes you yearn for some more fluid splattered body horror.

3 out of 5 Buttons