So over Thanksgiving break, I saw David Cronenberg's new film A Dangerous Method. With my mom. Obviously. The film is basically about a crazy lady (Keira Knightley, all JAW) who goes to get treated by Carl Jung and ends up having an affair with him, much to the chagrin of Jung's mentor, Sigmund Freud, who later becomes krazy-Keira's doctor. One would think that a movie about a woman with a sexually-based psychosis who has an affair with a shrink that is himself obsessed with the subject of sex would get pretty kinky and wild. Not so. This is NOT the feel-erotic holiday movie I was looking for (Mom agreed with me).
Now, I ADORE Cronenberg. Dead Ringers is a masterpiece, Videodrome blew my mind, eXistenZ is a wonderful, wonderful film, I'm obsessed with Eastern Promises, and I even dig that freaky weirdo Crash. I could obnoxiously ramble on about ALL of Cronenberg's films. And there were some very good things about A Dangerous Method. Viggo Mortensen is quietly hilarious as Freud and Fassbender brings his typical intensity to Jung and the scenes between the two actors are actually really provocative and interesting (although the film doesn't explain what Jung's beliefs are at ALL, and as someone with very little knowledge of Jung's work, I was a tiny bit confused). The movie also looked beautiful, and the score was excellent. So there's that. I think I wouldn't have been SO disappointed if I had understood SOME of Jung's motivations and thought processes.
It's not a ROMANTIC movie, and although some people find Keira Knightley to be fetching (but I cannot get over her jaw), you don't understand why Fassbender initially gives in to having an affair with Keira and then later, what makes him desperate for her not to leave him. All of the theories and ideas expressed in the film were interesting, but it's as if the conversations the characters had were completely detached from what was actually happening to them. I, as a viewer, didn't get what I was supposed to glean from what Jung was doing and as a result, all the groovy things he said about the mind felt kind of empty.
If I am being totally honest though, the lack of sexytimes is what disappointed me most of all. I mean COME ON. Did you not see A History Of Violence? Is Fassbender (fully dressed in a suit, I must note) whipping Knightley's butt supposed to be shocking? Or hot? Because it's not. Whatever, I am seeing Shame tomorrow. Putting my money on that one.
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