David Cronenberg’s dark, delving films have confirmed him as Ringmaster in the Circus Macabre – a persuasive, distinctly sinister purveyor of the grotesque, who always goes for the hard sell when it comes to sweaty, sloppy sexuality. Little wonder, then, that the trailers for his new film present it as a Bennett-bonneted Secretary, a strange, psychological period menage a trois with more than a hint of kink.
But in an ironic twist, it turns out that this phallus may actually just be a cigar. A visually handsome but uninviting dramatisation of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud’s (Viggo Mortensen) mentorship and their differing views of psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method seems to suffer from a bad case of oral fixation. As Jung struggles to reconcile his professional ethics and personal desires, while also trying to compete with Freud’s status as an intellectual innovator, Christopher Hampton’s screenplay betrays its non-fiction inspiration. Eschewing any personal touch for historical factoids, the film merely becomes an unengaging exchange of ideas. Lengthy, cold conversations are followed by endless scenes of letter-writing voice-overs until the talking cure has conversed any emotion up off the couch and cinema screen.
But this detachment can’t be blamed on the actors. Though handcuffed by the bombastic and occasionally boring script, Fassbender’s Jung is nicely repressed, while Mortensen’s cigar-chomping dry wit is a droll delight. Keira Knightley’s turn as Sabine, Jung’s masochistic patient who is as interested in the art of psychoanalysis as she is in convincing Carl to give her the oul Freudian slip, proves mixed. Though she later brings some much-needed passion to the otherwise overly formal proceedings, her initial rocking, spitting and jaw-jutting portrayal of madness is a corseted, clichéd Cuckoo’s Nest copy.
A cerebral but stagnant lesson in the history of psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method will attract a narrow audience, though psychology buffs may find the historical accuracy sexsessful.