The Canadian David Cronenberg, known from horror films such as Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986) and violence studies such as A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), provides a surprise with a modest adaptation of the play The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton, who personally rewrote it as a screenplay – just as he did with his Oscar-winning screenplay for Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (1988).
A Dangerous Method looks at the early period of psychoanalysis and the fruitful clash between Sigmund Freud (played by Cronenberg regular Mortensen) and his critical follower Carl Gustav Jung (a controlled Fassbender). The story focuses on the ‘hysterical’ Sabina Spielrein (Knightley), who is treated successfully by Jung using Freud’s insights, then embarks on a secret relationship with her married doctor and later becomes a famous feminist psychoanalyst herself. With great attention for the early 20th-century settings in Jung’s Zurich and Freud’s Vienna.
Film details
- Countries of production
- Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom
- Year
- 2011
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2012
- Length
- 93'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
