Movies are getting too long. It’s a complaint that’s become increasingly common. Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “War Horse” runs nearly 2 1/2 hours. No child, even before the age of video games and the Internet, could be expected to still sit that long. I preface my review this way so that when I make the following declaration, you know I really mean it: “A Dangerous Method” isn’t long enough. David Cronenberg has made a very good movie about the intellectual relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. But he could have made a great one. It would have been impossible to do so, however, in just 99 minutes, which is how long this movie runs. Surely two of the most important theorists of human behavior of the 20th century deserved a full two hours.
Especially as played by Michael Fassbender (Jung) and Viggo Mortensen (Freud). When a new patient arrives at Jung’s Swiss clinic in 1904, the doctor decides to try out Freud’s new “talking cure” on her. Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) has all the marks of the classic hysteric. Her psychological problems have manifested themselves physically.
| On screen |
| ‘A Dangerous Method’ |
| 3 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley |
| Director: David Cronenberg |
| Rated: R for sexual content and brief language |
| Running time: 99 minutes |
Sabina’s not an easy patient — though the film features some of the year’s best acting, from its male leads, it also has some of the year’s most clearly Oscar-baiting, courtesy of Knightley — but the new method, which eschews the near-torture some psychiatrists had been inflicting on their (especially female) patients, seems to be working. So well, in fact, that Jung begins to fall in love with her.
Freud warned his protege about transference, of course. But Jung has been increasingly rejecting the ideas of the mentor he once adored. “There must be more than one hinge into the universe,” Jung says, with some frustration. The scientific Freud will admit of no mysticism. But Freud isn’t involved with a woman like Sabina, who might convince any man to abandon all rationality.
“A Dangerous Method” was written by Christopher Hampton, based on his play “The Talking Cure.” (He previously adapted his own play “Dangerous Liaisons.”) But the style here is unmistakingly that of Cronenberg — especially in the scenes in which Sabina begs her doctor for the only thing that can sexually satisfy her: humiliation. “A Dangerous Method” itself, though, is not quite so satiating. This patient, anyway, was left wanting more.
