"A Dangerous Method" is the latest film from David Cronenberg, a normally brilliantly unconventional filmmaker. Unfortunately, this film fails to present a compelling story or interesting characters (with one very notable exception), and I ultimately found myself just not caring. The film is the story of the birth of psychoanalysis, as shown through Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his relationships with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) an extremely unstable patient of his. But despite covering a period of around ten years, the film is only 99 minutes long, and as such is essentially plays as nothing more than a highlight reel of these two relationships, hopping from one scenario to another without ever establishing any real emotional connection The one bright spot for me was Mortensen's performance as Freud. Mortensen steals absolutely every scene he's in, to the point that I'd much rather have seen a biopic of Freud--one that was about an hour longer than this film--with Mortensen in the role. It's one of the year's finest supporting performances, but Mortensen can't rescue the film as a whole which ultimately left me with a feeling of "who cares?"
"A Dangerous Method" is rated R for sexual content and brief language.
Running time: 99 minutes.
Released domestically on November 23, 2011, by Sony Pictures Classics.
2 stars out of 4.
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