Recensioni de* critic*

Engrossing [and] admirably acted... A Dangerous Method takes an objective, historical look at the early days of psychoanalysis... We are left to ponder the legacy of Freud and Jung and the complex way it continues to affect the way we think and colour our daily lives.

Despite a top-notch cast performing well, and bravely in the case of Knightley, this is an austere, somewhat repressed movie. It never really gets under the skin in the way Cronenberg does at his best.

Because of the issues under discussion and the historical characters, not to mention the customary concision with which Cronenberg handles the material, "A Dangerous Method" maintains considerable interest, despite mixed performances.

Using a dialogue-heavy approach that's unusual for Cronenberg, his film is skilled at the way it weaves theory with the inner lives of its characters. We are learning, yet never feel we're being taught. Freud and Jung seem to be learning as well.

[A Dangerous Method] is muted and unaffecting. Hampton is adept at creating wall-to-wall dialogue that sounds profound in the moment... Here is a film that, in a way, recalls the rigidity of Freud’s own style of thought — it crafts in-the-moment propositions that are undeniably thought-provoking, while, in the end, neglecting the necessity of change and dynamism. The film is like a static pulse.

The confident directing style of David Cronenberg is essential in making this kind of intellectually stimulating cinema look easy, but the critical component in the film’s success is Christopher Hampton’s classically well-written script... When a director who perennially goes for broke decides to exercise restraint on screen... the results are invariably worth the effort.

[A Dangerous Method] is certainly the most genteel film Cronenberg has ever made, with period costumes worthy of Merchant/Ivory, no gore, and very little physical violence. But A Dangerous Method doesn’t feel like a wimp-out or a sell-out at all. It’s a fiercely thoughtful film, a movie of ideas that understands how powerful ideas can be.

Though the “venereal horror” of Cronenberg’s great movies is present here, it appears in domesticated form... Seen in that light, A Dangerous Method fits the contours of yet another, familiar genre: the year-end Oscar-bait drama, which provides a suave showcase for its urgent dialectic, elevated dialogue and world-class stars.

Appearances to the contrary, “A Dangerous Method” is not just another decorous Oscar-season costume party... What we are witnessing, rather, is the raw, liberating and terrifying emergence of a distinctly modern way of understanding, and trying to assuage, some of the pain and intensity of being alive... “A Dangerous Method” is so strange and unnerving precisely because the world it depicts is, for better and for worse, the only one we know.

[A Dangerous Method is] smart if somewhat timid drama; Hampton's approach mostly dominates, his tasteful style reinforced by the upscale historical setting and Howard Shore's conventional score. Yet there are flashes of Cronenbergian anarchy that prevent the movie from settling too comfortably into the period upholstery.

Cronenberg’s psychoanalytical drama is markedly flat and even unremarkable, yet is lifted by two fine performances from Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen.

[A] masterful inquiry into the birth of psychoanalysis. Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were great letter writers and A Dangerous Method is carefully constructed, based on the vast amount of resultant documents, eager to be accurate in all the details.