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| DANGEROUS METHOD, A (2011)
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SBD Star Rating:
by Chiara Adorno
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A Dangerous Method has received positive reviews from critics. Directed by David Cronenberg, who notoriously flouts taboo subjects, the director tackles another in his exploration of cardinal themes in this period drama about sex, hysteria, and the origins of modern psychiatry. It is the story of Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who becomes the patient of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and their turmultuous affair during the time of her treatment. The surviving correspondence between Jung, Freud and Spielrein are the basis of the story, much of which remains obscure, but it's clear that Spielrein, enraged after Jung broke off the affair, ratted him out in a long letter to Freud, and that Jung first lied to protect himself but eventually confessed to his beloved mentor. J.R. Jones Chicago Reader notes that there is "some juicy stuff" Cronenberg style here, however, "the movie this leads to an odd dichotomy between the drily cerebral and the powerfully sexual: on the one hand, decorous scenes of intellectual jousting between the two esteemed gentlemen, and on the other, primal shots of Jung and Spielrein getting it on, which culminate in a bound Spielrein shouting with pleasure as Jung spanks her with a leather belt." Ultimately, though, J.R. Jones pronounces, "Jung himself may have written the perfect review of A Dangerous Method in 1910 when he explained his ideas about symbolism in a letter to Freud. "Logical thinking is thinking in words, which like discourse is directed outwards," Jung wrote. "Analogical or fantasy thinking is emotionally toned, pictorial and wordless." A Dangerous Method says, J.R. Jones, could have used more of the latter." James Verniere Boston Herald writes, "I haven’t had this much fun observing smart people misbehave in ages. This is all libido, all the time, and the most mature, intelligent and dangerous movie liaison of 2011." Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune observes, "the wonderful thing about Fassbender and Mortensen ... they're effortlessly convincing in period, and they know how to make recessive characters intriguing. They're movie stars with very little vanity or interest in winning an audience's sympathies when such things aren't warranted. Knightley, who is top-billed, may overdo it at the beginning, but her jagged edges and feral intensity mellow into a portrayal of real complexity. So much is addressed here, from anti-Semitism to punitive gender roles to broken hearts. So much, yet so glancingly. A Dangerous Method may be the provocative Cronenberg's least-provoking film. But it's also one of his strongest and saddest." |
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