Viewed in
2011
Formats
Movie theater
Premise
Michael Fassbender stars as Carl Jung who develops feelings for a former patient (Keira Knightly) while debating and pushing the envelopes of psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen).
Liked
Acting, the debates.
Thoughts
It was well-acted and tickled my brain.
Fassbender and Mortensen were very good, smoldering in intensity. Knightly successfully balanced her performance as mentally-unstable without falling into over-acting. Vincent Cassel stole scenes as the seductive wild card.
The writing was strong, especially characters and debating dialogs. All the major characters had their own voice and clearly fleshed out. But what I enjoyed most were the heated discussions and arguments between Jung and Freud. Themes tackled included the boundaries of psychoanalysis, Freud's stubborn insistence on everything derived from sex, and dream interpretation.
What disappointed me in A Dangerous Method was the lack of emotional payoffs. While each actor was excellent on their own, I never felt much chemistry between characters, like the forbidden attraction between Fassbender and Knightly, and the restrained tension/mind games between Mortensen and Fassbender.
Intellectually it was very interesting, but soon I lost that intrigue waned without feeling the heart of the story.
