A Dangerous Method

David Cronenberg goes Merchant-Ivory. Or maybe it's Last Tango in Switzerland. While there's no denying that the Canadian auteur brings his pervy intellect to an otherwise buttoned-down costume drama about the origins of psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method isn't for everyone. And especially isn't for fanboys hoping for another Videodrome or ExistenZ.

Adhering to history as documented by letters and journals, Cronenberg presents a movie of ideas rather than fully formed drama, exploring the conflicting egos of friends-turned-rivals Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). The catalyst for their professional embrace and personal rejection of each other is Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), Jung's patient-turned-mistress-turned-disciple, who intellectually challenged both men before arriving at her own tragic end.

Adapted from Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure, Carl and Sabina's passionate but doomed love affair (complete with sadomasochistic liaisons) becomes the foundation for a lot of academic-minded dialogue and dense debate. Trading away his eye for metaphysical horror, Cronenberg indulges in a more cerebral exploration of where the corruption of the mind and desires of the body intersect. He does this by surveying a time when Freud was just beginning to test his theories, Jung was establishing his persona, and "ambivalence" had newly entered the lexicon. Hampton, who adapted his play, is careful to never take sides in the war of ideas between Jung and Freud, and instead examines how these deeply flawed thinkers channeled their own personalities into theories that would have profound effects on psychiatric medicine.

Restrained and handsomely mounted as the film is, it's Knightley of all people who injects it with some deranged energy. Physicalizing Spielrein's mania, she explodes in fits of jaw-jutting fury, violently grimacing, howling and stuttering as she struggles to control her repressed sexual impulses. It's the kind of performance that divides critics, inviting mockery by some and praises of courage by others. Whatever your reaction, Cronenberg sees Spielrein as a brilliant and attractive proto-feminist, burning with desires that would challenge any male, past or present.

And Fassbender's Jung is the man who tries to meet that challenge. Intellectually ambitious and spiritually curious, he is an idealist who wants to rebel against his prim sense of propriety. Too open-minded for Freud's tastes, he is presented as a victim of repressed appetites, fearlessly and foolishly embracing new (and sometimes cockamamie) ideas, while never being able to overcome his aristocratic Swiss-German breeding. It's what incites him to have an affair with a woman who is, in many ways, his opposite. And from that affair blossoms true love.

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