Part of the December Project: Film #44

It's far from the boring drudge I had been led to believe it would be, but it still falters on a dramatic level, and is very tame for Cronenberg standards.

The problem with A Dangerous Method isn't Cronenberg's restraint, as many people would believe. In fact, the film's restraint is its biggest strength, as it details the clinical nature of the characters. Instead, it is the very fact that the film just doesn't seem brave enough to become dramatically engaging.

This is a shame because the subject matter here is actually VERY interesting, or at least to me. A look at the birth of early psychology and the dichotomy between the school of…

Throughout his career, Cronenberg has shown an interest in science and sex and those individuals that push the boundaries of both. It is for this reason that A Dangerous Method seems ideal material for him. Yet there is a disappointing restraint here (how different this story could have been if he had made it in the ‘80s) and worse than that, a stilted lecture on psychology.

The main element that will divide audiences is undoubtedly Keira Knightley’s hysterical performance. Ignoring her less than stellar Russian accent it is her excessive twitchy mannerisms that could well be a film ruiner for many. However, I rather enjoyed her performance as it provides a good counterweight to the reserved and intellectual sparring of…

Well....when this movie was about to enter theaters I was eagerly awaiting its arrival. Having just seen Eastern Promises when this film came out I had big expectations for another Cronenberg-Mortensen-Cassel collaboration...plus, this one had Fassbender to top it all off.

I watched this as part of my Michael Fassbender marathon and, unfortunately, was left fairly disappointed.

Fassbender, Mortensen, and Cassel delivered great performances, as expected. Cassel is so good at playing the disturbed "bad guy" who always seems to cross the line. Mortensen, as the grizzly, stubborn Freud, and Fassbender as the troubled opposition who wants to shake things up were their typical stellar selves.

Kiera Knightely, however, absolutely ruined this film for me. Her Russian accent was absolutely…

*deep sigh*

I may have had extremely high expectations for this, and maybe because it didn’t exceed those expectations, I feel a little empty now. I couldn’t help but look past the whole “it’s based on a play” argument, but there was just way, WAY too much dialogue, and it wasn’t even that engaging. I’m a psych student, this should have more than captivated me.

The cinematography is a little uneven. The use of double focus (is that what it’s called) in almost every scene looked really bad at times. Other times it worked. What I mean is that they would focus the person in the foreground, have the midground out of focus and focus the person in the background.…

¨Experiences like this, however painful, unnecessary and inevitable, without them, how can we know life? ¨

David Cronenberg`s A Dangerous Method was one of my most anticipated films of 2011 for several reasons: First of all I loved Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen`s first two collaborations together in A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Those two films were among my favorite when they were released. Mortensen has always worked really well with Cronenberg and I had high expectations for his role as Sigmund Freud in this film. Add Micheal Fassbender, who has turned everything he touches into gold this year; to the mix and you have yourself one of the most anticipated films of the year. I was really looking…