A Dangerous Method

Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Christopher Hampton
Starring: Kiera Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen
Release Date: November 23, 2011
Length: 1 hour 34 minutes

    Canadian director David Cronenberg of acclaimed films like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises tackles a whole new risky subject with A Dangerous Method. Academy Award winner Christopher Hampton adapts his successful play about the exciting time of psych history with Carl Jung, Sigmeund Freud and the distraught smart woman between the two of them.

    In 1904, Jung (Michael Fassbender) is happily married to his expectant wife Emma (Sarah Gadon), living at his large institution in Switzerland. He receives a young Russian patient suffering from hysteria named Sabina Spielrien (Kiera Knightley). Jung knows that Spielrien was continuously abused by her father, but through treatment he learns that she was and is still sexually excited by abuse inflicted upon her. As she heals, Spielrien becomes closer to Jung through her intrigue in psychoanalysis and interest in becoming a psychiatrist. Jung begins meeting with renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) in Vienna, where the two butt ideas. Freud eventually sends the sexually eccentric psychoanalyst Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell) to live with Jung, where Gross expresses his theory to not suppress any of your natural instincts and encourages Jung to sleep with patients he is attracted to. With Gross’ advice, Jung finally gives into his impulses and begins an affair with the now mentally stable Spielrien. As the years progress, Spielrien and Jung’s affair goes through battles of power, breakthroughs and questionings of consciences, similar to psychology’s development.

    A Dangerous Method is no exception to Cronenberg’s history of incorporating sex, brutality and most importantly bold and bizarre subject matters into his films. He bravely takes on a world-renowned historical subject that has remained untouchable to the film industry up until now. A Dangerous Method is simply the most compelling film of the year and succeeds in mesmerizing you through the skillful combination of history and drama. Something I always find to be a difficult challenge with historical films is maintaining historical accuracy while entertaining you with interesting dialogue. This is an aspect Christopher Hampton achieves best in. His script allows you to see the amount of research done on the topic while simultaneously having the most clever and intriguing conversations, especially between the opposing pyschologists. He perfectly adjusts the language to let people like me, who do not know much about psych theory, understand Freud and Jung, while not patronizing us either.

    From this multifaceted script, Cronenberg delves deep into the multiple character studies while bringing out the time period stunningly. Cronenberg and his cast members combined, make the film itself, a psychotherapy study of each character and relationship as we come to fully understand and identify with each of them. You see the distraught and continuous role changing between Jung and Spielrien, something you aren’t made to abhor or support, just fully comprehend and be absorbed into. The attractiveness of a film can sometimes be all you need to be won over, and regardless of what you think of the acting or story, there is no doubt everyone can appreciate the gorgeous cinematography, costumes and sets carefully chosen by Cronenberg and his crew.

    The most entrancing element of the film is the performance of it’s leading lady, Kiera Knightley, in her best role yet. Though Knightley’s career has had many highs, she has come a long way from playing a sixteen-year-old football player, as her skills as an actor continue to improve. Fassbender carries the film wonderfully as the distraught Jung, Mortensen does his most profoundly character enveloped performance yet as the iconic Freud and French actor Vincent Cassell makes a memorably amusing cameo as Otto Gross. But it is Knightley who steals the film with her remarkable portrayal of a hysteric-turned-loving young woman. The history that intrigues you, the romance that grips you, the shots that entrance you, and the cast that astonishes you all make Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, by far, one of the best films of the year.