Fridae

Following the footsteps of historical mini-biopics like Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky and A Week with Marilyn, A Dangerous Method tells the tale of the short period where Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung collaborated, fell out, and then clashed over the development of psychoanalysis as a nascent science. Circling about the two giants (one at the peak of his career, one at the verge of a breakdown that would mark the start his career) are their equally brilliant and wayward protégés and sometimes collaborators, whose inner conflicts would provide Freud and Jung ample material to develop and test their theories about the human mind.

As an adaptation of a stage play, A Dangerous Method is a high-brow, intellectual affair that might require audiences to know a little about classic psychoanalytic theory or the historical context of psychoanalysis in order to appreciate what transpires. The script works on the premise that both Freud star student (Vincent Cassel as a very troubled, brilliant young man) and Jung's protégé and patient and lover (Keira Knightley as a brilliant but somewhat nutty young woman with a few major hang-ups) were much more than case studies or students, but were intellectual partners and collaborators who helped both men to understand the human mind as much as they threatened to derail their careers. That said, the film's primary focus is on young Carl Jung and his affair with the mentally troubled Sabina Spielren and its fallout on his professional relationship with Freud. Also the clever script puts much of Jung's mature theories decades ahead of time, in the mouth of Spielren as she undergoes treatment for her personality disorder.

The story works because it's all true – the fathers of psychoanalysis did have that much drama between them and an entire laundromat's dirty laundry behind them when they developed their science. If great power come with great responsibility, sometimes great genius comes with very dangerous life decisions.

David Cronenberg's direction in this film transforms his body horror sensibility into a psychological one with great effect but we can't say that he managed to tame the broad one-note overacting of Keira Knightley, who portrays the alleged co-founder of Jungian psychoanalysis as a woman with a severe nervous tic. That nervous tic is just about all the range that Ms Knightley can muster; she can't pull off a sadomasochist who enjoys the pain, or a mental patient who hold people hostage to her situation as much as she is a hostage to her mind. In a cast of luminaries under the direction of a genius on an adaptation of an award-winning play, Knightley is the sore thumb that sticks out in an otherwise lovely film.