David Cronenberg's latest comes in the form of a look at the early days of psychoanalysis, as Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightly and Viggo Mortensen take on the historical figures Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Sigmund Freud respectively.
Although I knew that the relationship between Jung and Spielrein was a large part of the plot, I didn't realise the infamous Freud would take such a back seat. I previously had no knowledge of the other two's work but was impressed to listen to each's disapproval of Freud's theories.
Audiences and critics have called A Dangerous Method dull and all too much talking not enough action...but I found the interactions that took place between these three great minds to be highly interesting and informative.
Knightly's performance may take a while to adjust to... those facial contortions did make me want to laugh and I am so used to her English accent that I did not know what to think of her Russian interpretation at first, but it was good to see her out of her comfort zone and take on such a bold part.
Cronenberg fans will probably be disappointed, but none the less an engaging account of such a fascinating subject.
4/5
Interesting that you rated it as highly as you did. I feel the subject matter of the conversations were quite intriguing, but as a dramatic piece, I did find it somewhat lacking and pretty disengaging - plus the performances are pretty uneven but I blame the direction for that rather than the cast. I can see what attracted Cronenberg to making it however.
ReplyDelete