A Dark Desire

David Cronenberg is a master at looking into the deep recesses of the human soul in his films. Often he is not very squeamish about it, which makes many of his films extremely disturbing, but also unique in their own way. With A Dark Desire he now pays tribute to the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, C.G. Jung and Siegmund Freud. But here, of all places, Cronenberg lacks the abysmal quality that otherwise makes his work so worth watching.

The film is set in the early 20th century. Here, young psychiatrist C.G. Jung (Michael Fassbender) is in Zurich at the very beginning of his career. Emulating his great role model Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Jung wants to test an experimental treatment method he plans to use to treat Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), who has been diagnosed as a hysteric. Indeed, his conversations with the young woman seem to confirm Freud's thesis that sexuality and emotional disorders are inextricably linked. Inspired by his findings, Jung begins a lively correspondence with Freud that develops into a friendship between the two men. And the treatment also seems to have helped Sabina. She is discharged as cured and henceforth devotes herself to a career as a psychiatrist. This superficially perfect picture, however, is clearly cracked when Jung begins an affair with Sabina and his faith in Freud's theories dwindles more and more. And so the friends soon become bitter enemies.

The adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure has some very compelling pluses. The screenplay, written by Hampton (Abbitte, Dangerous Liaisons) himself, is laced with excellent dialogue, which is conveyed to the screen in first-rate fashion, especially by Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender. Thus, the scenes between the two psychoanalysts are then the highlights of this drama. Here, the film actually benefits greatly from its rather theatrical nature.

The camera work of Cronenberg's regular cinematographer Peter Suschitzky also belongs to the successful aspects of the film, as he succeeds first-class in visually enhancing the strong acting of the actors and capturing the sometimes very atmospheric locations at Lake Constance, in Vienna and Cologne, as well as the authentically equipped sets in such a way that A Dark Desire always looks like a great film, despite its dramaturgically more theatre-like character.

A rather ambivalent impression is left by Keira Knightley's performance. While she delivers a great performance, especially in the second half of the film, she seems to be just screaming for an Oscar in the first few minutes. The way she writhes tensely, thrusts her lower jaw further forward than a human should be able to, and lashes out distraughtly simply seems too much of an effort to be truly believable. When Sabina has calmed down and is acting out her sexual obsessions with Jung, Knightley's acting is much stronger and doesn't seem nearly as dogged.

What the film really struggles with in the end, however, is that it really doesn't have much more to offer the viewer than good actors and some excellent dialogue scenes. The rest, as well acted and as beautifully filmed as it may be, is shockingly inconsequential. A Dark Desire is far from being a bad movie. However, this piece of cultivated boredom doesn't really live up to the expectations that may be placed on a psychological drama by David Cronenberg. But if you are interested in the subject matter, you should risk a look just because of the two main actors and their word duels.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp