A Dangerous Method Reviews

Our Review

Impressive psycho-drama could have gone deeper

Richelle Jackson, MovieFix

After a hiatus of five years since the disappointing Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg returns with the based-on-fact psycho-drama A Dangerous Method.

Adapted from the play A Talking Cure, this film covers a period of great friendship and collaboration between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), though Cronenberg chooses to focus on the relationship between Jung and patient-cum-mistress-cum-psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).

Spielrein is committed to Jung's sanatorium for hysteria — and as it turns out, she likes to be spanked, and thankfully Jung has an interest in spanking. An intelligent young woman, Sabina develops a relationship with Jung, which escalates into a full-fledged affair that's destined to end badly. When it does, both turn to Freud as friend, mediator, confidante, and even analyst.

A Dangerous Method is a good little film, even if at first Knightley is painful to watch as a hysterical woman complete with ticks and crazy eyes, and an accent that I'm assuming is Russian.

In the third collaboration between Mortensen and Cronenberg (following A History of Violence and Eastern Promises), Mortensen plays Freud as a cigar-chomping Jew who it would seem is jealous of Jung's money, youth, and talent and succumbs to an almost petty disagreement between the two men.

For me, the only character that has any real depth is Jung, played by the charismatic actor-of-the-moment Fassbender. My favourite scene has Jung simply looking across the lake; how a man can portray such a sense of loss and heartbreak without speaking or moving is riveting.

All in all, this film is impressive: the attention to detail in the costuming is wonderful, the lighting is brilliant, and the cinematography is gorgeous.

However, it could have been a bit longer and take a more in-depth look about the relationship between Jung and Freud.

Your Reviews

Colleen Nicol

A Dangerous Method is not a good little film, it is a compelling, profound,exquisite, moving and brilliant film.

Add a review

My Rating

Name

Movie Buzz

Last:

24 hours

7 days

The most anticipated movies on MovieFix

Biggest Movers

What is Movie Buzz?

MovieBuzz rates which movies are trending within the MovieFIX community.

You can choose if you "Want to see" or are "Not Interested" in seeing the movie on the Homepage trailer player, or in the Movie Information page. After 20 votes, we tally these scores and create a percentage of how many people "Want to see" that movie.

We then take these scores and display the highest percentages in MovieBuzz. MovieBuzz only features movies from their trailer release to two weeks after they have released in cinemas. You can see the rankings on a 24 hour or a 7 day basis (use the radio buttons near the title to switch views).