Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) risks the reputation of his profession during an affair with an ex-patient (Keira Knightley).
More cerebral than his often shocking fare, David Cronenberg’s absorbing “A Dangerous Method’’ is a fact-based drama exploring the schism between the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and his protegé, Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), in the early 20th century.
Soon after they meet at Freud’s bustling home in Vienna, the more conservative Jung begins questioning Freud’s insistence that all neuroses are rooted in sexual issues — a position Jung begins to argue will limit the application of Freud’s “talking cure.”
Freud, in turn, is nonplussed when he learns Jung is having an affair with Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a wealthy Russian Jew who Jung is encouraging to train as a therapist after successfully treating her for hysteria.
This ethical lapse, Freud fears, could provide ammunition for the many enemies of psychiatry. Jung, a well-off Protestant, is already an anomaly in a profession dominated by less-affluent Jews like Freud.
This unusual movie — adapted by Christopher Hampton from his play “The Talking Cure’’ and a 1993 book by John Kerr — is largely played out as we hear the actors read correspondence between Freud, Jung and Spielrein.
Cast against type as the cigar-smoking Freud, Mortensen has never been better (or funnier), encouraging the younger Jung but ever conscious of his position as an authority figure and head of the psychiatric movement.
As Jung — who juggles Spielrein with a beautiful and perpetually pregnant wife (Sarah Gadon) in Switzerland — Fassbender contributes another memorable performance in quite a year for the actor, following “Jane Eyre,’’ “X-Men: First Class’’ and his riveting work as a sex addict in “Shame,’’ which will be seen in theaters next month.
Knightley goes quite over the top as the masochistic Spielrein in her early scenes, but she’s fine as this fiercely intelligent woman — a noted psychotherapist in her own right who was executed by the Nazis during World War II — once Jung gives her a good spanking or two.
Vincent Cassel has a memorable supporting role as another disciple of Freud who is entrusted to Jung’s care for his own madness — but ends up encouraging Jung’s worst instincts.
Gorgeously photographed by Peter Suschitzky, “A Dangerous Method’’ presents a vivid portrait of pre-World War I Europe that’s at a considerable remove from the types of madness usually seen in Cronenberg’s films.