David Cronenberg was my main reason for seeing 'A Dangerous Method'. While not one of my all time favourite directors, he is a very unique and truly admirable one and find a good deal to like about all his films, even the ones that don't do a lot for me overall. The cast was also a selling point, with Viggo Mortensen in particular being so excellent in his previous two films with Cronenberg, and love Howard Shore's music.
'A Dangerous Method' is certainly above average and intriguing enough, but for Cronenberg and considering that it was exploring yet another challenging subject with the intent to unsettle it was somewhat disappointing. Not one of his worst, it is better than 'Stereo', 'Crimes of the Future' and 'Cosmopolis'. It's no 'The Fly', 'Dead Ringers', 'Eastern Promises', 'A History of Violence' or 'Dead Zone' either. Would personally put it somewhere in the middle, along with 'Crash' and 'M Butterfly'. Didn't hate it, didn't love it, more like respected it while wanting much more out of it.
There are a lot of good things here. For one thing it looks fantastic, beautifully shot with handsomely evocative production and costume design. The landscapes are just gorgeous to watch and the editing is suitably slick. Shore's score is haunting and has an emotional edge as well, which is what is so great about Shore's collaborations with Cronenberg. Parts of the script are very thought-provoking and intelligently written and the story did mostly start off promisingly, with signs of subtle unsettlement.
Most of the performances are fine, with Michael Fassbender's quiet intensity dominating the film beautifully. An underused but very charismatic Viggo Mortensen more than matches him and steals all his scenes actually. Vincent Cassel is memorably serpentine.
Keira Knightley however is over-taxed in her role and over-compensates painfully. Cronenberg's direction is great on a technical level but is too restrained and surprisingly emotionally cold, something that is expected from first starting out but this is late Cronenberg where many times previously he proved that he could shock and move.
Found the story to be too often pedestrian in pace and jumpy structurally in the latter stages of the film, and what should have been the central relationship, which should have been the most interesting aspect, to be criminally underdeveloped. Much more depth to the characters would have been more welcome too, all of them are too sketchy. The worst aspect of 'A Dangerous Method' is the very superficial and too talky script that has too many ideas and undercooks all of them. This was a brave and challenging subject given too restrained and tame treatment.
In summation, above average but should have been much more. 6/10
