David Cronenberg swaps gore for talk in A Dangerous Method

What you need to know

David Cronenberg's German-Canadian co-production explores the relationship between psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Cronenberg is best known for compelling, visceral films such as The Fly and Crash, and much of the pre-release hype has focused on the "spanking scenes" with Keira Knightley.  

There's more to it than that. Based on a play by Christopher Hampton, the action takes place on the eve of WWI. Jung is drawn into a complex relationship with a brilliant but troubled patient, Sabina Spielrein, leading him to risk his career, family life, and friendship with mentor, Sigmund Freud.
 
Michael Fassbender, most recently seen in Shame, stars as Carl Jung. Knightley plays Sabina, Jung's patient and lover, whom Jung spanks in an attempt to cure her hysteria. She eventually becomes one of the first female psychoanalysts. Viggo Mortensen, who appeared in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, plays Sigmund Freud.
 
What the critics like

Cronenberg is usually associated with body horror, says Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, but this is "a cool, measured, loquacious film". Even the sexual adventures are shown with clinical detachment, and "there is a droll undercurrent of black comedy".
 
Talk - smart, satisfying and sometimes even thrilling - is at the heart of this film, says Kenneth Turin in The Los Angeles Times. Hampton's literate script provides the essential language, Mortensen and Fassbender do a "splendid job of turning iconic figures such as Freud and Jung into compelling people".
 
Knightley's performance as a hysteric starts at full tilt, says Tim Robey in The Telegraph. Her writhing, baying and jaw clenching is a technically accurate imitation of documented cases from the era. "Whether you find this histrionic display impressive or instantly off-putting may be a matter of taste, but you certainly couldn't accuse her of being in any way cowed by the material."

What they don't like

It's a precisely made, somewhat buttoned-up account of two men's struggle for conceptual supremacy, says William Thomas in Empire. It should be a ferociously interesting showdown, but "the promised intellectual fireworks never arrive".
 
Knightley's brave but unskilled depiction of hysteria leaves itself open to easy laughs, says Justin Chang in Variety. The spectacle of "the usually refined actress flailing about", stammering and wailing in a Russian accent doesn't really work. "But as Sabina's condition improves, so does Knightley's performance."
 
The relentless talkiness of this Freud vs Jung: Celebrity Shrink Smackdown never translates into drama, says Anthony Quinn in The Independent. As for the spanking encounters between Kightley and Fassbender, they break up the psychoanalytic shop talk, "but don't generate much in the way of carnal heat".

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