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.
