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A Dangerous Method

A DANGEROUS METHOD directed by David Cronenberg, written by Christopher Hampton from his play The Talking Cure, with Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Sarah Gadon. An eOne Films release. 93 minutes. Opens Friday (January 13). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN


Adapting Christopher Hampton’s play The Talking Cure, David Cronenberg explores the friendship and eventual schism between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) that gave birth to modern psychoanalysis.

Cronenberg’s clinical approach to Hampton’s too on-the-nose dialogue makes for a very static drama it’s as if the filmmaker is much more comfortable dealing with eroticism as subtext than text.

Fassbender and Mortensen are never less than watchable as the cautious Jung and the more flamboyant Freud, but Keira Knightley is mannered and artificial as Jung’s patient, disciple and lover, Sabina Spielrein, whose tragic story is relegated to the background by Hampton’s focus on the conflict between Freud and Jung.

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