Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own stage play The Talking Cure, in turn based on the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr, A Dangerous Method stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud and Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung in a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery. Based on real events, the film is set in Zurich and Vienna on the eve of World War I, and dramatizes the stormy relationship between a young Jung, his mentor Freud, and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a beautiful yet unbalanced young woman who comes between them. The addition to this tableau of Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), a debauched patient with a dislike of boundaries, makes things even stormier.
"It's fascinating to see the exceptionally charismatic Fassbender squeeze himself into the role of the aristocratic, restrained Jung, and it's just as enjoyable to see Mortensen bring an unexpected virility to his sybaritic, cigar-chomping Freud." --Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times (full review)
"A Dangerous Method is full of ideas about sexuality--some quite provocative, even a century after their first articulation--but it also recognizes and communicates the erotic power of ideas." --A.O. Scott, New York Times (full review)
"David Cronenberg's career-long fascination with matters of the mind manifests itself in compelling but determinedly non-mind-bending fashion." --Justin Chang, Variety (full review)
