It’s almost impossible to imagine another director tackling this strange story of obtuse humanity with such clinical precision, except maybe Milos Forman or Philip Kaufman. David Cronenberg used to be called the king of venereal horror for movies like Shivers. He even once said that his films should be taken from the point of view of the disease. There’s a reason he garners attention for audacity, after all.
Well, A Dangerous Method is the logical extension of his previous body of work, borne from the same bloodline as the intelligent, compelling and still dreadful Dead Ringers: two male doctors, one female patient and a troubling trip into everyone’s psychosexual development.
A Dangerous Method is about Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), one of the world’s first psychoanalysts. Before she became a doctor, she was a patient of Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and the person who spent his professional career studying the life of the mind, leading him to develop analytical psychology.
Spielrein was in bad shape when she first came to his care: a jittery bundle of nerves and neuroses, tics and personal troubles. She might have been fiercely intelligent but she sure had a monkey on her back, psychologically speaking of course. She was hysterical in just about the most historically accurate use of the word.
He treated her with what he called “the talking cure” instead of harsh pharmaceuticals and other interventions that Western medicine had come to apply in its mental health facilities. This was 1904 after all. Half of the female patients were diagnosed as schizophrenic, and schizophrenics at the time were often injected with a mixture of sulfur and oil when they weren’t given gas or insulin to manipulate their body and brain chemistry.
While Jung treats Spielrein, he also embarks on an extramarital affair with her. At the same time, he develops a professional relationship with Sigmund Freud, as they both further their theories and research. Their famous first meeting led to them conversing non-stop for 13 hours without realizing the passage of time.
Regardless, the movie bounces back and forth between Jung and Freud to Jung and Spielrein. You might think that Viggo Mortensen (a frequent Cronenberg collaborator) would steal the show as Freud because he is such an immersive and enjoyable actor to watch. Here, not so much. Maybe you’d think that Michael Fassbender, as Jung, would be the star because he’s in practically every scene. He’s a great actor too and this movie should make a fascinating companion piece to Shame, his other new release about a sex addict.
No. This movie belongs to Keira Knightley. Her performance is astonishing, clearly worthy of attention by awards committees. Her scenes in the first few minutes of the movie are unfair to the rest of this 100-minute psychodrama. Knightley’s version of Spielrein is unsettling and a little over the top at times, but then we are led to believe that this person’s affliction was extreme as well. It’s not a glamorous portrayal for an actress familiar with period pieces and pretty dresses, but it’s brilliant and captivating.
A Dangerous Method was scribed by Christopher Hampton who adapted it from his stage play, The Talking Cure, which was in turn based on the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr. Hampton has a good reputation for screenplays, including Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement, also starring Knightley.
This, like Atonement, ends up being a rather staid affair, featuring many scenes with leather chairs, fine suits and pipe smoking, yet at the same time it’s a very challenging work for an overwhelmingly sterile North American audience. Millions of people flock to tripe like Transformers yet balk at Cronenberg’s own ingenious and audacious Crash.
This is a psychological think piece with a lot of heavy dialogue about a subject that many people have trouble talking about, let alone thinking about. Spielrein, in her intellectual progress, purports that true sexuality demands the destruction of the ego, that the sexual drive contains both an instinct of destruction and an instinct of transformation.
If you can handle that statement, if it intrigues you to learn more, then this is the movie for you. If not, Michael Bay’s next movie will be more to your liking.
Review
A Dangerous Method<br />Stars: 4.5<br />Starring: Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel and Sarah Gadon<br />Directed by: David Cronenberg<br />Rated: 14A<br />Now playing at: Cineplex Odeon North Edmonton and Princess Theatre
