SCREEN
A Dangerous Method
(15) 100mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
An impeccable ensemble talk to each other in pretty rooms about sex and Keira gets spanked in David Cronenberg's drama of ideas.
REVIEW
There's an old joke that goes like this: Two doctors meet at a party. One says to the other: "You're fine. How am I?"
And there's something of that knowing-me-knowing-you sentiment going on here as the father of psychoanalysis, the suave Sigmund Freud and his starchy heir apparent Carl Jung swap dreams for each other's stimulation.
At the centre of this story is this fleeting, fractious but fascinating friendship between the two titans of breadbox-bothering and that is where the best of this film is to be found.
Their meaty discourse about the perils of the libido and the limits of the "talking cure" is good value, although rarely cinematic.
Based on a play by Christopher Hampton, the film betrays its stately and static roots as people talk and smoke in pretty rooms.
Added to the mix (in reality as well as on film) is Sabina Spielrein, the hysteric who became Jung's patient, lover and then his student.
It is Jung's guilt over his infidelity and his lies to his mentor that begin the schism between the two great thinkers. While Jung and Spielrein shed tears, the real bruised love of this story is that of Freud and Jung.
Gurning for Britain, Keira Knightley adopts a jutting jaw and an accent to bring to life the confused but spellbinding Russian who was abused by her father and who now finds herself aroused by spanking.
That Knightley manages to knit together straitened intellect and hee-hawing madness into one convincing character is much to her credit and she is the equal of Michael Fassbender as the wounded stalwart Jung and Viggo Mortensen as the increasingly prissy Freud in this impeccable ensemble.
Director David Cronenberg's shot choices are placid and reverential and he has drawn visual inspiration from Magritte to create a brave if dour drama that respects the great men and their ideas but often needs a kick up the Keira.
