A Dangerous Method

A slightly boring and talky costume drama about Freud and Jung and their relationship with one particular patient. However, it’s Cronenberg, so thankfully it does get a little kinky. But only a little. The cast here is great. There are intimate and fully realized portrayals from all the leads, including an expert range of restraint and emotion from the new leading man Michael Fassbender. Kiera Knightly also manifests a startlingly honest and barely-controlled crazy person, a victim of abuse who benefits and then shares the techniques developed by Freud and Jung. The movie explores but never judges the complicated relationships that shrinks can have with their patients, back to and including the very first of the head-shrinkers. A more interesting history than drama, it’s worth seeing, but only after a coffee or two.