Dangerous Method but a sadly safe film
Film
THE WOMAN IN BLACK
Cert: 12A
****
by Stevie Martin
Daniel Radcliffe returns post-Potter in this traditional ghostly yarn based on Susan Hill’s novel and the wildly popular West End show. Director James Watkins gives a masterclass in creaky gothic horror, complete with rolling mists, strange spectres with a penchant for black (and appearing behind people), and plenty of heart-stoppingly tense scenes involving candlelight.
After the death of his wife, young solicitor Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) travels to a tiny English village to sort the affairs of a recently deceased woman. Holed up in an inn, sleeping in a room where two children infamously died, and plagued by a cursed figure known locally as The Woman In Black (a spectral Liz Smith) it becomes clear the house holds something more unnatural than spiderwebs. Despite strong performances from innkeepers Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer, this is all riding on Radcliffe’s shoulders and he, thankfully, rises to the challenge. Against elegant grey scenery and through endless, and expertly judged, suspense sequences, Radcliffe surprisingly convincing. Although all he has to do is react, he looks neither out of place nor out of his depth.
Some horror fans will be disappointed by the lack of gore, but Watkins creates an atmosphere where the slightest creak of a floorboard raises the hackles and empty space becomes horribly sinister. The anticipation is dragged out to near-painful lengths before allowing the audience that all important final scare, making this adaptation a credit both to the original novel and the terrifying theatre production.
Though we’ve seen it before, and there may be one too many moments involving figures appearing in mirrors, this remains deliciously creepy stuff and a welcome addition to the traditional English ghost story canon.
Film
A DANGEROUS METHOD
Cert: 15
***
by Steve Dinneen
A Dangerous Method has been largely – and willfully – overshadowed by its hype. Most people heard about “that film where Keira Knightley gets spanked” long before they knew it was about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. To be honest, when I found out, I was a bit worried they might get in the way of the spanking.
The scene in question – which turns out to be fleeting – has been talked about so much it colours the rest of the movie, in the same way that watching Titanic is coloured by the knowledge that the boat is going to end up at the bottom of the ocean. A Dangerous Method’s narrative – centering on the relationship between Freud and Jung during the early years of psychoanalysis – is like a sexual orchestra building towards the inevitable filthy crescendo.
It’s a shame that the film isn’t quite strong enough to carry the weight of expectation. It has the ingredients of a classic David Cronenberg film; madness, sex, revulsion at the self. But it’s all disappointingly flat.
Knightley is often – unfairly – criticised for pouting her way through roles, an accusation that certainly can’t be levelled at this performance. From the opening scene in which, as Jung’s disturbed patient-come-protege Sabina Spielrein, she is dragged kicking and screaming into an asylum, Knightley sets out her stall. She contorts her chisled jaw and slender limbs in improbable angles, flinching at the slightest movement. This is her What’s Eating Gibert Grape moment. She doesn’t quite pull it off. Despite a valiant effort, she is never quite convincing as Spielrein the patient, although she is more comfortable as her character “recovers” (a very suspect word in the eyes of a psychoanalyst).
Viggo Mortensen is impressive as psychoanalytical patriarch Freud, playing him with a slightly menacing reserve. Michael Fassbender’s Jung is a refreshing change of pace for the actor of the moment – a likable, earnest chap troubled by his repressed sexual desires and some pretty wacky ideas about para-psychology. The dialogue between the two doesn’t exactly crackle but it’s a fascinating take on the decidedly Freudian relationship at the heart of psychoanalysis.
If you can put the spanking to the back of your mind, A Dangerous Method is a passable, slow-paced period drama. But as a David Cronenberg vision of the nature of psychology and desire, you can’t help but feel short-changed.