A Dangerous Method (2012)
Director: David Cronenberg
Entertainment grade: B
History grade: C

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were pioneers of psychoanalysis. In the 1970s and 1980s, papers discovered in Geneva revealed the extent to which Jung was involved with a patient, Sabina Spielrein, who herself became a noteworthy psychoanalyst.

Mental health

Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) is working at a clinic in Switzerland when a young Russian woman, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is brought in, screaming and writhing hysterically. Spielrein's problems are swiftly traced to sexual fixations on being beaten by her father and on defecation. Gross, but true. It's also true that, when she calmed down a bit, she turned out to have a brilliant analytical mind. Meanwhile, Jung meets his idol, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). The two hit it off, and discuss Spielrein's case. What Jung doesn't tell Freud is that he's having an affair with her. There's no doubt now about this once controversial historical claim: "you have vigorously taken my unconscious into your hands with your saucy letters", Jung wrote to Spielrein on 20 June 1908. Private meetings between the two were arranged in this and many similar notes, making it plausible that an unconscious wasn't the only thing vigorously taken in hand.

Sex

John Kerr, on whose biography of Freud, Jung and Spielrein this film is based, has noted of Jung's practice that "by investigating fantasies, and making the patients take them seriously and sexually, analysis raised the complexes to delusional intensity before dissolving them". It's perhaps on this basis that the film asserts Spielrein wanted Jung to beat her. It's certainly not on the basis of fact. While the investigation of fantasy probably was part of Jung and Spielrein's affair, by that time her fantasies took the form of obsession with the Wagnerian hero Siegfried. But the film wants to show you Keira Knightley's nipples popping out of a corset while Michael Fassbender whacks her bottom with a belt strap. There is no evidence that the two indulged in spanking or whipping. The letters between Spielrein and Jung say no such thing, and nor does her very intense diary. Still, they're dead and can't complain, and perhaps the producers hoped a few more of you might go and see their psychoanalysis movie if they bunged in some kinky stuff. To be fair, it's much more restrained than you might expect from director David Cronenberg. It's still made up, though.

Relationships

Jung tries to dump Spielrein. A Dangerous Method promptly turns her into the psychotic Alex from Fatal Attraction, dead set on either getting the hapless Jung back or ruining him. At least she stops short of boiling his bunny. Maybe because he doesn't have a bunny. The film shows correctly that Jung lied to Freud, portraying Spielrein as a fantasist when really he did have a long affair with her. But it doesn't get close to the reality that both he and Freud belittled her as a colleague throughout her career, while simultaneously incorporating ideas of hers such as the "death-instinct" into their own work. It's true that Spielrein had trouble accepting the breakup, but Jung's real letters to her make him sound like such a git that it's impossible to take his side. Unless, apparently, you're this film.

Character

Appropriately enough, A Dangerous Method develops a sort of personality disorder (the subject of Spielrein's study). The scenes with Freud and Jung are clever, unexpectedly funny and thoroughly enjoyable. The portrayal of their paternalistic and troubled relationship is spot on, both historically and cinematically. The scenes with Spielrein fall flat. Partly, this is because Mortensen and Fassbender play their parts brilliantly, with commendable subtlety and easy wit. While this isn't Knightley's worst performance, as an actor she is not in their class. But it's also the fault of a screenplay which allows Freud and Jung substance while fobbing Spielrein off with an archetype. Not even a Jungian archetype. Just a Hollywood one.

Verdict

A Dangerous Method is great on the guys, but maybe David Cronenberg needs to work on his underdeveloped anima.