Sometimes Oscar bait can backfire. It's been well documented that the Academy Awards prefer to honor epics, biopics, and all kinds of period pieces/costume dramas. The better ones almost always pick up at least a couple of Oscar nominations. The most recent example of the Academy's fawning over these kinds of movies is The King's Speech, which won four Oscars, including best picture, even against what were, in my opinion, superior films like The Social Network and Inception. However, a movie about the real life story about a King struggling with a disability during World War II is simply the kind of story the Academy eats up. Don't get me wrong, The King's Speech was a good movie, but it was not last year's best picture. But I'm not here to talk about the winners. I'm here to talk about the movies that try to be like the winners. Some movies sound like they'll be nominated for Oscars just by hearing their plot synopsis, but fortunately the Academy is able to sort out the ones that fail to execute. A Dangerous Method is one of those films.
This 2011 film follows the real-life story of famous psychologist Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) and his relationships with Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). At the beginning of the film Sabina is a raving, manic lunatic who has been admitted to Jung's sanitarium for treatment. Jung decides that she is the perfect candidate for the “talking cure” that was being touted by Freud at the time. After Sabina is treated by Jung, she decides to become a psychologist herself, and asks Jung to help her with her doctoral thesis, during this the two fall in love and engage in a lurid affair. Jung also meets with Freud and the two discuss the effectiveness of psychoanalysis on Sabina, as well as the direction they think they ought to take their research. Freud thinks that they shouldn't leave the “solid scientific foundation” of sexual theory, and Jung thinks Freud is too preoccupied with sex and psychology should branch out to study other sorts of phenomena. The plot jumps about skittishly between the relationship between Sabina and Jung and the debate between him and Freud, without delivering a satisfying ending to either of them.
Besides the stunning attention to detail and accuracy in the costumes and set design, the only bright spot of the film is Fassbender's performance. The character of Jung shows a wide range of emotion in this film, and Fassbender hits all of the notes perfectly. 2011 was truly a banner year for Fassbender, appearing in starring roles in five films, including the part of a young Magneto ins X-Men: First Class. It is too bad that this year was such a tough year for the best actor category, because he should have been nominated for an Oscar, perhaps not for this film as it is otherwise lacking, but instead for his outstanding performance in Shame. Knightly's performance is the exact opposite. She overacts throughout the entire film while continuously slipping in and out of a bad Russian accent. The film's third star, Mortensen, doesn't really give much of a performance either. Not that he was bad as Freud, but his character doesn't do much and neither does his acting. It seems he knew he was just there to fill the role which the film could've done without but needed to include because everybody knows who Sigmund Freud is. As much as I disliked this film though, I think it would've been better if it were longer. At just 99 minutes long, The film skips the two years which Sabina undergoes her treatment, which would've been the most compelling part of the film had they included it. The dialog between Jung and Freud also seems disjointed, and more scenes between the two of them would have served nicely to fill in the holes.
Obviously this film is the kind that the Academy would love to nominate. It is a real life story of famous historical figures set during the early 1900s. However, the film feels rushed, as if it were struggling to meet a deadline. Perhaps the producers thought that they could get some nominations if they released the movie before the Academy's deadline for consideration. But if this were the case, it would make more sense to make a better film and release during awards season later this year. Whatever the case is, it was a shame to see so not only so much wasted talent, but a wasted premise, which could've been executed so much better.
Rating: 3.5/10 - Sinful
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