Cinema for Brunch FREUD’S LAST SESSION Review

Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode deliver terrific performances in the interesting but unfortunate misfire “Freud’s Last Session”.

Synopsis

September 3, 1939. The world is on the brink. A monumental session with two of the greatest minds of the twentieth century over the future of mankind and the existence of God.

Review
It’s a tightrope a filmmaker has to walk when constructing an entire film around a conversation between two characters and not expecting for that film to be…lacking something. Films like “Before Sunrise”, “12 Angry Men” and the infamous, philosophical “My Dinner with Andre” are classics of the conversation subgenre. Unfortunately, with director Matthew Brown’s “Freud’s Last Session”, it’s proven that you need more than great actors and great dialogue to make a great film. The premise is simple: Two days after the start of WWII in London, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) meets with young Oxford Don C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode) for one last session. What proceeds is an intriguing battle of wits and passions about God, pain, mankind and other weighty themes. While the conversation between the legend and legend-in-the-making is meaty, there is much to be desired throughout the course of this would-be great film.

“Freud’s Last Session” could be a powerful battle of wits and charms if it didn’t take detours and chose to stay on course. Before the legendary (albeit fictional) meeting itself, we already have an idea of how Freud feels about C.S. Lewis and his belief in Christianity. His daughter Anna Freud (Liv Lisa Fries) makes a quip asking if her father is going to meet with the “Christian apologist”, referring to Lewis’ converting to Christianity from atheism. Sigmund quips back that the young don “has a lot to apologize for”, referring to the anxiety of WWII and not knowing if a bomb is going to drop or not. The Freud that Anthony Hopkins portrays here has a resentment towards God and the idea of him. He suffers from an oral cancer that is killing him and he contemplates the idea of suicide. Goode’s Lewis is a great antithetical foil to this character as this is a man that has hope, believes in humanity, believes in free will and how people have a choice. This dynamic has potential to be powerful as the conversation turns great when these two men speak about their beliefs and wax poetic about the human condition. But the film inevitably misses its mark by adding more than what is needed – we follow Freud’s daughter Anna and her secrecy with colleague and lover Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (Jodi Balfour). She has hidden her relationship from her father as well as her colleagues and it has led to tension between her and Dorothy. This storyline is not bad or uninteresting but it’s just distracting from the film’s promising premise – a meeting of the minds between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. Not only is the “Anna” B-plot distracting, it’s an unnecessary addition to a story that doesn’t need it.

Co-written by Mark St. Germain (who wrote the original stage play of the same name), director Matthew Brown tries his best to bring some cinematic value out of this conversational piece. But, as it goes on, the forest can be lost through the trees. Some of the detours we take – Freud having a dream rich in Freud-like imagery (ha!), C.S. Lewis reflecting on lost comrades in the war – are good service to the plot and characterization. However, detours including an evacuation sequence, boring flashbacks, and unnecessary supporting characters brings the film down from its would-be greatness. Tis a shame, really, because this performance is essentially Anthony Hopkins at the top of his game in his late career (coming off the terrific performance we witnessed in Florian Zeller’s “The Father”). His performance as Freud is nothing short of masterful – every moment of hubris, wonder, amusement and sadness is felt through his performance. And Matthew Goode meets him in equal measure – portraying the young Lewis with humility, grace, and conviction. These men couldn’t be even further apart from each other in character and belief – but their differences are also what makes them each other’s curiosity. That’s what makes these performances (paired with the dialogue) so great – if only the film stayed focused and just followed these two the whole time.

Closing Thoughts
While it may have good qualities in its actors and their performances, “Freud’s Last Session” unfortunately misses the mark with the detours and leaves the audience wanting more from its promised tête-à-tête. Hopkins and Goode deliver fine performances as the giants Freud and C.S. Lewis but the performances and dialogue aren’t enough to count the film against its sins of being tedious and meandering. A sideplot with Freud’s daughter Anna may have worked better in its own film but here, it feels out of place and just fails the material as a whole. Besides its detours, “Freud’s Last Session” is overall a solid palaver-of-a-time concerning the human condition, pain, loss, religion and many other things.

Trailer