A Dangerous Method: Sex, Madness and S&M

The time period right before World War I may have been the calm before the storm that would lead to much horror and death — but it's the perfect setting for the the topics the movie seeks to address. It's certainly hard to imagine another time where a film discussing sex and psychoanalysis could also feature a few S&M scenes and still be taken seriously.

The film focuses on the relationship between two titans of psychology and a lesser-known one: Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) —who was once one of Freud's most devoted disciples — and one of the first female psychoanalysts, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).

The film opens at a clinic in Zurich in 1904, where we see the patient Sabina screaming and desperately fighting her attendants. Admittedly, I have no experience with people who suffer from such an extreme form of mental illness, but it is the only time in the movie where Knightley's performance seems over-the-top.

When Jung first meets Sabina, he decides she is an ideal case for the experimental new treatment, the “talking cure.”

As he treats her, he also makes the acquaintance of Sigmund Freud, masterfully played by Mortenson as the cool and dominating to Fassbender's equally exquisite performance of formidable intelligence and repressed passion. The dialogue where they calmly discuss theories and psychoanalyis is fascinating without being pretentious, and incredibly adept at showing how human foibles and personalities can shape the theories that have become such an embedded part of our lives and culture.

Meanwhile, Sabina heals and blossoms under Jung's care, eventually studying in Vienna to become a psychoanalyst herself (and eventually cultivates a professional relationship with Freud). The attraction between the Sabina and Jung soon grows into an affair, despite Jung's love for his wife. Said affair (which leads to the aforementioned S&M scenes) and desires that fuel it are artfully shown and expressed without falling into the other extreme of no repressions or limits.

Intelligent and wonderfully written, with a top-notch cast, A Dangerous Method presents thoughtful questions yet refuses to condescend to its audience by offering all the answers. The main quibbles I have is that some of the key events in the characters' lives happen offscreen, and while the characters mention that anti-Semitism (both Sabina and Freud were Jewish) and conservative elements might oppose their work, you never really see these elements of society. While that's understandable given that the film's focus is on how the interaction between these three characters and their personalities shaped history, it can sometimes make the film seem frustratingly incomplete.

REVIEWER RATING: B+