MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
|
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
MOVIE REVIEW
A Dangerous Method
Method Of Psychosexual Pre-War Modern Love
Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein and Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung in David
Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method".
Sony Pictures Classics
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Wednesday,
November 23, 2011
In theaters today in New York City and Los Angeles, David Cronenberg's period
drama "A Dangerous Method", which charts the strong relationship between early
20th century psychiatrists Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and their shared effect
on a patient's sexual behavior, is a rather tepid affair, more staid than
stimulating, more sleep-inducing than thought-provoking. The film
represents a fine filmmaker's day off, after such strong recent efforts as "A
History Of Violence" (2005) and
"Eastern Promises" (2007).
Set just prior to World War I in Vienna and Zurich, Jung's patient Sabina
Spielrein (Keira Knightley) has endured continuous beatings and other physical
abuse from her father but admits she likes it. Sabina gets aroused when
her father spanks her. She masturbates immediately afterwards, she says to
a stubborn Jung (Michael Fassbender), a repressed married man. Jung is
constrained by his reticence to be sexually adventurous with his wife and to
fully explore the depths of his own desires and sexual impulses. There's
tension between Jung and Sabina, and Jung's attraction and repulsion to Sabina
is further accentuated by the id of a visiting scholar (played with relish by
Vincent Cassel) and the ego of Freud (Viggo Mortensen), who believes there's a
method of therapy and diagnosis of sexual relations that could explode the
boundaries of patient-doctor relations and complicate matters where Sabina is
concerned. A dissatisfied Sabina seeks Freud's help and draws he and Jung
into an intense psychosexual realm.
Dressed in one scene like the lawns from "Last Year At Marienbad" and toned and
flavored like something from Masterpiece Theater, "A Dangerous Method", based on
John Kerr's book "A Most Dangerous Method" and Christopher Hampton's play "The
Talking Cure", is strait-jacked in its period and grounded by its subject
matter. The film suffers chiefly from straining too hard to convey any
serious exploration of its issues of psychology and sex -- issues which should
have leapt off the screen and made for fertile and intriguing discussion.
In attempting to uncover and heal the psychosexual personality of an abused
woman (or man) the film ends up more like unintended comedy than compelling
drama.
Jung and Freud come across less as deep thinkers and psychiatrists than they do
stiff pieces on a cerebral chessboard. Through their actor inhabitants
they communicate with little at stake it seems, other than seeing who won't
break their serious veneer first. (Between Mr. Mortensen and Mr.
Fassbender it's the latter who comes closest to doing so.) The interplay
between these fine actors is good but not great. Based on a true story of
the series of events over a 10-15 year span, the Jung-Freud connection -- that
of master and mentor, of son and father-types -- is only briefly explored.
The complexity and subtleties in their relationship, especially for these two
powerhouses of psychiatry, is oddly subdued and mannered. We aren't
treated to enough of their interactions, at least those beyond the surface.
The film spends more time, at least initially, on Sabina, a Russian-born and
raised 19-year-old who has fixations and obsessions with her anal area, grasping
at a salaciousness and sensation muted by the film's mercifully slow pace and
subplot involving Jung's wife.
The effect of watching "A Dangerous Method" through to its entirety is to come
away feeling empty and removed from its events. The film is
self-alienating through its lack of engagement, and Mr. Hampton's script and the
film's overall direction are void of bite or conviction. Situations that
are supposed to be riveting or even titillating are rote, dry and uninteresting.
As such, "A Dangerous Method", which also lacks Mr. Cronenberg's typically
visceral and lurid flourishes, is akin to watching paint dry. I didn't
grasp where the director was going in depicting the true events and when the end
came what was supposed to be memorable was forgettable.
As for the acting, Mr. Mortensen, the director's reliably great acting master,
admirably does what he can to keep Freud from being a bore. Mr. Fassbender,
who has had a fine year on the big screen turns in the weakest performance of
his four film characters in 2011, his urgent, immediate disposition defined by
Jung's wide-eyed intensity. The performance looks and feels like method
work itself rather than an embodiment of the character that reaches the
audience.
On the big screen I didn't gain a greater interest or enhanced understanding of
the complex issues these two friendly rivals pontificate on, for I was
overwhelmed and distracted by the cloying, overreaching acting by Ms. Knightley,
who single-handedly stops the film in its tracks, her changing accent, her
gestures and paroxysms more laughable than authentic. It's a shame,
because Ms. Knightley has done some good, even arresting work in the past, but
her role as the disturbed Sabina in "A Dangerous Method" is simply too
theatrical, matching the actor's stage background to a T. It's pure frolic
and detour, as is Mr. Cronenberg's underwhelming film.
With: Sarah Gadon.
"A Dangerous Method" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association
Of America for sexual content and brief language. The film's running time
is one hour and 39 minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2011. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
| PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME