A Dangerous Method Movie Review

Image via A Dangerous Method- The Movie

I have another Michael Fassbender movie under my belt, but unfortunately it is with much less enthusiasm.

A Dangerous Method, which opened in theaters this past fall, features Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, a practicing psychoanalyst in the early 20th century working at the same time as Sigmund Freud. In fact the film details the professional relationship between Jung and Freud as they discuss their different theories of the psychoanalytic practice. Their relationship becomes fractured and eventually falls apart over Sabina Spielrein, a scientific colleague and a woman whom they are treating.

The premise of the movie would have been plausibly interesting if the actors had been able to pull it together. Unfortunately, two of the three did not.

Keira Knightley as Spielrein was absolutely the weakest link. Her terrible Russian accent (her speech coach had a British name, really?) was neither convincing nor interesting in its own right. It was too soft and her British accent shone through way too often, making her appear to speak with a lisp more than anything else.

Knightley's attempts to be convincing as a mentally-ill hysteric also fell flat. Her contorted facial and body features in the beginning scenes seemed forced and fake as she initially comes to Jung as a patient needing serious treatment. As we find out later through Jung's analysis, the young woman's problems come from a relationship with her father where she developed a particular sexual fetish for being spanked.

As Spielrein stiffly contorts and shouts about her father spanking her: "I liked it! I liked it!" I couldn't help but laugh. Perhaps this is all based on a true story, but Knightley's acting makes it seem more like a comedy than a drama. Before we know it Jung is spanking her himself in passionless, boring scenes provoking more laughter at the ridiculousness of the whole portrayal.

Jung is another character who falls flat. I would have expected much more from Fassbender after seeing his performance in Shame, but for some reason there is virtually no emotion in his performance this time: Not in his affair with Spielrein, and not much in his theoretic debates with Freud. Fassbender plays a very passive and passionless role where he should have been much stronger. A man willing to break with the famous Sigmund Freud over the treatment of one young woman is not passive, yet Fassbender does a great job of appearing so.

The only actor whose performance is somewhat convincing is Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud. Meticulous, stubborn, and serious, yet also somewhat patronizing, Mortensen potrays the scientist with relative ease. He plays a supporting role however, so even if his acting job was mediocre it would not bring the movie down.

With both the male and female lead actors turning in such work, however, this movie just cannot get off the ground.