A Dangerous Method: Press reviews

'Dark and troubling, David Cronenberg's film is, despite its complicated subject matter, one of the most straightforward he has made.'

'a cool, measured, loquacious film'

'We are left to ponder the legacy of Freud and Jung and the complex way it continues to affect the way we think and colour our daily lives.'

'The talky emphasis may alienate, but Cronenberg's psychoanalysis session offers wry writing, elegant direction and fine leads'

'"A Dangerous Method" is so strange and unnerving precisely because the world it depicts is, for better and for worse, the only one we know.'

'It never really gets under the skin in the way Cronenberg does at his best.'

'The idea that she is currently filming Anna Karenina had seemed a bit ridiculous. Not after this.'

'Infinitely assured moviemaking.'

'What's odd, for Cronenberg, is how the film can feel like an advert for buttoned-down restraint rather than danger or release'

'No doubt Cronenberg is expressly flouting a tradition of films about psychoanalysis that are excessive and overtly dream-like.'

'The most compelling scenes are those between Mortensen and Fassbender, while Knightley gives a fair performance but lumbers herself with a distracting accent, and her gurning in the early scenes may be too much for some to bear.'

'The last nail in the coffin is that the pace is slow, and much of the talk turgid.'

'When you start to feel nostalgic for the late Ken Russell, you know something is wrong . . . '

At Venice: 'Even the celebrated spanking scene fails to knock much life into David Cronenberg's lugubrious tale of the tussle between Freud and Jung'

'a film that reaches after truth but only talks itself to a standstill'