Freud's Last Session

There is a recent outbreak of films made for people past puberty and this film is one of them. Serious issues are discussed. Thoughts are provoked. Both actors (and the actresses who get less flamboyant screen time) play intelligent philosophers grappling with something we all have to face - is there an eternity? Or oblivion? What prompts a genocide by humans to eliminate theirnown species? No flying cars or superheros, just intelligent adults grappling with serious questions.

Anthony Hopkins fills his unpleasant character with a minimum of scenery chewing, and Matthew Goode was a pleasant surprise, keeping his more quiet character in the mental battle. But the little known story of Anna Freud is tragic and brings real emotion to the story. A grown up film (sorry, Barbie).

It's 1939 on the very eve of declaration of War in London. Oxford don C. S. Lewis (Matthew Goode) calls upon Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) at his invitation. He passes Anna Freud (Liv Lisa Fries) as she goes out to lecture and ponder whether she will reveal her lesbian affair to her father. Meanwhile, the two men attack each other's philosophical beliefs.

And that's what the movie is, two men talking, interrupted occasionally by flashbacks to their younger days and air raid to lend this stage play some cinematic credibility. In this made-up scenario -- although the story is that an Oxford don visited Freud shortly before his death, the claim, as here, that it was Lewis, is a fabrication of the play and movie -- they argue around each other, and finally agree only that people are afraid of death.

The rest of it.... well, Freud's beliefs are at the end of his life (he died three weeks after the supposed events of this film), while there are plenty of things that Lewis did say until twenty years after. As for the basic disagreement about religion versus science, that's a non-conflict; as smarter people than I have declared, science is about how, not why. If G*d created the universe we live in, thanks a lot.

Both men are fine actors and easily translate the script into natural-sounding words. I have no idea if Hopkins' accent is a good representation of the Viennese one; Kohli Calhoun is listed as the dialect coach.

The script is thought provoking as you follow a neurologist who discovered psychoanalysis conversing with a Christian author who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. ALSO, the events take place on the day before WWII and both gentlemen are equally brilliant as they are stubborn, as seen with each of the many discussions-turned-arguments that take place. Transitions and flashbacks are heavily utilized to portray character depth, but whether it's a particular style of acting or the timing of each scene paired together, this format ultimately doesn't work. Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode showcase their individual acting talent with long monologues and fluctuating emotions, but in the pivotal moments of occupying a scene together, the chemistry never quite flourishes. However, director Matt Brown keeps the viewer engaged by allowing us to be an unbiased fly on the wall rather than purposely tilting the conversation in one direction. The story feels restrained, most likely due to the subject matter, but that won't affect the enjoyable experience that many will have.

I respect S Freud as an early but pioneering psychologist, and I very much admire C. S. Lewis as a humanist and fiction writer. Whether this meeting between Freud and Lewis really happened doesn't matter so much, I think. What matters is that it's a fascinating concept to imagine the two men debating science vs religion, and this film does a very decent job of portraying this discussion.

While I wouldn't go so far as to call this the most moving film I've ever seen - I think Shadowlands for example was far more moving and The Soul Keeper ( a film about Jung and his female patient ) was more intriguing - I did genuinely find Freud's Last Session to be philosophically poignant. The discussions between Freud and Lewis are intellectually sound and do ask those age old questions, such as if God is good, why is there suffering? A question I guess we all grapple with in one way or another.

This film did remind me a bit of In Lambeth the other play about a fictional meeting between Thomas Paine and William Blake which, while quite different, approached the two sides of a philosophical debate in a similarly genuine and interesting manner.

Ultimately, there is quite a good amount of wisdom and intellectual content in Freud's Last Session and for that I found it fun, mildly moving and worthwhile. The cinematography and acting are decent. If you like psychology, philosophy and films that are really just play's on screen, then I hope you'll enjoy this.

Hopkins playing Freud was bound to be hit or miss. Unfortunately, he delivers here one of his familiar, highly mannered performances. Whenever this "Freud" opens his mouth, he speaks in the same rapid, slightly eccentric rhythm Hopkins favors. Then he pauses, reflects a moment, flashes a sudden rueful grin, and utters a little chuckle or cackle. It's been Hopkins' default style throughout his career (at least when not playing Lecter), this time with a Viennese accent. I doubt Freud was ever so hammy.

My faith was also shaken early in the movie when, for no discernible reason, the order of two famous events was reversed. On September 3, 1939, Prime Minister Chamberlain announced over the radio that the nation was at war with Germany. A few minutes later, air raid sirens went off, terrifying London's populace. (It proved to be a false alarm.) For some reason, the movie has the false air raid preceding the declaration of war.

It also features, in connection with Chamberlain's broadcast, an old bête noire of mine: A large group of psychologists is listening to his historic speech on the radio, and when it's over, the BBC announcer says something like "That ends the Prime Minister's message" -- at which point someone (is it Anna Freud?) snaps off the radio. No one would do that in real life, with war just declared and with urgent government announcements yet to follow (and there were plenty of them).

One further complaint: the clumsy way flashbacks are shoehorned into the narrative, giving us the backstories of Freud, Lewis, and Anna, with a heavy emphasis on Anna's lesbianism.

Incidentally, considering that C. S. Lewis was one of the most brilliant speakers in Britain -- eloquent, persuasive, never at a loss for words -- he is uncharacteristically tight-lipped, timid, and hesitant in this movie, even for someone being courteous to a revered, dying old man. Armand Nicholi's fanciful book "The Question of God," one of the inspirations for this movie, lets the two iconic figures battle it out, with Lewis (and God) ultimately gaining the upper hand. But in this movie's version of that imaginary encounter, Lewis has little to say. It is all Freud's show.

At least the movie is handsomely mounted; it's nice to see what Freud's office must have looked like. That aside, I can't see the point of the movie. Is it just to give Hopkins the chance to do another bad impersonation of a historical figure?