a dangerous method: too much method, not enough danger
A Dangerous Method has its moments, but it never really delivers on its promise. I'm usually a fan of Cronenberg, but as A Dangerous Method wore on, I felt more and more that he wasn't the right director for this material.
Cronenberg's style just didn't seem to suit this story, whether because it's a period piece or because of the talky screenplay. Transitions are choppy, scenes feel stagy; it was very unsurprising to learn from the end credits that the film is partly based on a play. Though the film covers a period of years, there's little sense of time passing, and while the settings were beautiful and seemed period-accurate, I didn't feel the story was anchored very well to its specific time and place.
Some of that is down to the direction, and some of it's due to the script, which at times feels nearly claustrophobic-- hardly any other characters speak aside from Jung, Freud, Sabina, Jung's wife, and Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross. Conversations are curiously void of references to anything beyond the characters' immediate sphere. Freud mentions several times the larger world's dubious reaction to psychoanalysis, but none of that conflict is dramatized.
Scenes often feel disconnected from each other. At one point, Jung mentions he plans to travel to America with Freud, but Freud doesn't know it yet. Then we see Freud and Jung preparing to board the ship to America... skipping over whatever surprise Freud might have felt upon learning that Jung intended to accompany him. There are too many little "Huh?" moments like this, interrupting the flow of the movie.
Viggo Mortensen nearly vanishes into Freud, but Freud gets so little time and his scenes are so stagy that the performance doesn't get a lot of room to breathe. It doesn't seem quite fair to criticize Keira Knightley for overacting her character's mental illness, but sometimes it seems excessive. More solid direction might have helped put her performance in context. The only times we see other patients, they're docile and listless. Knightley's on firmer ground later, when Sabina is studying and becoming independent.
Jung receives the most interesting characterization, a man who piles his plate with food and seems to be constantly packing tobacco in his pipe, but keeps on his tie while making love to his mistress. But though Jung is foregrounded throughout, the camera seems to keep its distance even from him.
Early scenes showcase Fassbender's ability to convey a lot with small changes of expression, and he looks very different in this role than as Brandon in Shame or Magneto in X-Men: First Class. As portrayed by Fassbender, Jung is mannered, intelligent, and well-intentioned, but a bit abstract and thoughtlessly greedy, of material things and of time and attention from Freud and Sabina.
I saw a review that questioned why Jung speaks in an English accent while Sabina and Freud have Russian and German accents. I believe that's a deliberate choice to underline one of the reasons Freud was so eager to promote Jung as his follower and successor: Jung presented a more "respectable" and widely palatable image, as an Aryan rather than a Jewish person. But this aspect of their relationship, like so many things in the movie, is just mentioned and never demonstrated in action.
The chemistry between Jung and Sabina is also spotty; sometimes convincing, sometimes not so much, and the performers really aren't helped by staging or script. Jung never seems to undress and Sabina never even seems to call him by his first name. The spanking and sex scenes, glimpsed in the trailer, hardly get any more time in the film, and don't feel all that charged to me. YMMV.
There are some sharp and subtle lines in the dialogue (and some that are sharp and not so subtle) that hint at a more lively and interesting story. Some of the best moments show how passive-aggressive and bitchy these historic figures could be. But A Dangerous Method never quite seems to connect its characters to one another or to the audience. Worth a rental but not a theater viewing unless you're really into these actors.
Though let me rec again A Cure Through Love,
stewardess's crossover between Michael Fassbender's Jung in A Dangerous Method and James McAvoy's Valentin Bulgakov in The Last Station. It requires no knowledge of either film to appreciate, it's charming, and it's much more emotionally satisfying than A Dangerous Method itself.
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Cronenberg's style just didn't seem to suit this story, whether because it's a period piece or because of the talky screenplay. Transitions are choppy, scenes feel stagy; it was very unsurprising to learn from the end credits that the film is partly based on a play. Though the film covers a period of years, there's little sense of time passing, and while the settings were beautiful and seemed period-accurate, I didn't feel the story was anchored very well to its specific time and place.
Some of that is down to the direction, and some of it's due to the script, which at times feels nearly claustrophobic-- hardly any other characters speak aside from Jung, Freud, Sabina, Jung's wife, and Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross. Conversations are curiously void of references to anything beyond the characters' immediate sphere. Freud mentions several times the larger world's dubious reaction to psychoanalysis, but none of that conflict is dramatized.
Scenes often feel disconnected from each other. At one point, Jung mentions he plans to travel to America with Freud, but Freud doesn't know it yet. Then we see Freud and Jung preparing to board the ship to America... skipping over whatever surprise Freud might have felt upon learning that Jung intended to accompany him. There are too many little "Huh?" moments like this, interrupting the flow of the movie.
Viggo Mortensen nearly vanishes into Freud, but Freud gets so little time and his scenes are so stagy that the performance doesn't get a lot of room to breathe. It doesn't seem quite fair to criticize Keira Knightley for overacting her character's mental illness, but sometimes it seems excessive. More solid direction might have helped put her performance in context. The only times we see other patients, they're docile and listless. Knightley's on firmer ground later, when Sabina is studying and becoming independent.
Jung receives the most interesting characterization, a man who piles his plate with food and seems to be constantly packing tobacco in his pipe, but keeps on his tie while making love to his mistress. But though Jung is foregrounded throughout, the camera seems to keep its distance even from him.
Early scenes showcase Fassbender's ability to convey a lot with small changes of expression, and he looks very different in this role than as Brandon in Shame or Magneto in X-Men: First Class. As portrayed by Fassbender, Jung is mannered, intelligent, and well-intentioned, but a bit abstract and thoughtlessly greedy, of material things and of time and attention from Freud and Sabina.
I saw a review that questioned why Jung speaks in an English accent while Sabina and Freud have Russian and German accents. I believe that's a deliberate choice to underline one of the reasons Freud was so eager to promote Jung as his follower and successor: Jung presented a more "respectable" and widely palatable image, as an Aryan rather than a Jewish person. But this aspect of their relationship, like so many things in the movie, is just mentioned and never demonstrated in action.
The chemistry between Jung and Sabina is also spotty; sometimes convincing, sometimes not so much, and the performers really aren't helped by staging or script. Jung never seems to undress and Sabina never even seems to call him by his first name. The spanking and sex scenes, glimpsed in the trailer, hardly get any more time in the film, and don't feel all that charged to me. YMMV.
There are some sharp and subtle lines in the dialogue (and some that are sharp and not so subtle) that hint at a more lively and interesting story. Some of the best moments show how passive-aggressive and bitchy these historic figures could be. But A Dangerous Method never quite seems to connect its characters to one another or to the audience. Worth a rental but not a theater viewing unless you're really into these actors.
Though let me rec again A Cure Through Love,
stewardess's crossover between Michael Fassbender's Jung in A Dangerous Method and James McAvoy's Valentin Bulgakov in The Last Station. It requires no knowledge of either film to appreciate, it's charming, and it's much more emotionally satisfying than A Dangerous Method itself.
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/141633.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth