Key Insights from 'Freud's Last Session': Eshaan M.'s Review
3Freud’s Last Session, constrained by uninspired performances and a winding script, struggles to be more than a talkative, egoistic battle of wits. I left the film with a feeling as drab and gray as the cinematography.
The convoluted and unproductive debate is set in an air raid, siren-filled London, as England has just entered World War II and everyone is antsy waiting for the first bombs to reach the Isles. The great psychoanalyst and proud atheist Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) sits in his dark home as the film opens. He’s cynical and irritable as ever, in throbbing pain from oral cancer. Despite this, the 83-year-old seems to have the time for a chat with Christian apologist and soon-to-be illustrious author CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), who shows up late and uneasy from Oxford. The two, whose ideas are diametrically opposed, chat about everything from the existence of God to sexuality to past trauma. In the end, they reach an unsatisfying stalemate, which makes the conversation in Freud’s Last Session feel like two people who think they’re geniuses talking in circles…only to walk away without a resolution.
The premise of the film is fictional; a note that Freud met an unnamed Oxford don three weeks prior to his death is its factual jumping-off point. So take everything said and done in the film as realistic historical fiction. The conversation held by both characters lacks rhythm (only worsened by the flashbacks cut into the film and a few scenes where the two hide in a bunker together). I will say that the film has its insightful moments. Freud’s proud atheism and Lewis’ belief in a Christian God clash, but they also reveal key details about their lives, hypocrisies, and flaws. And of course the entire chat is a reminder of our mortality. Hopkins’ character seems to always be dominating Goode, but at least the content of Freud’s dialogue is rich. It’s a shame that Anthony Hopkins delivers a rather uninspired performance, not even attempting to shed his British accent for Freud's Austrian and instead peppering a few German phrases into his lines. Matthew Goode’s portrayal of Lewis is actually rather skillful; it’s a shame that screenwriters Mark St. Germain and Matthew Brown (also the director) limit his character. The side plots are more interesting. Sigmund’s daughter, Anna Freud (Liv Lisa Fries), has the best dialogue of the secondary characters. Anna faces her extreme devotion to her father, has some concerning fantasies that touch on her interest in studying sadomasochism, and introduces her lesbian lover, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (Jodi Balfour), to her father. Fries also plays the character with conviction (she actually has a German accent). One might forget that Freud’s Last Session has a cinematographer, since everything is so gray, shadowy, and dull. One wishes there was something bright — or even sepia-toned — to offset the heaviness of the topics being discussed. The ghostly pallor of the film made me wonder why Brown didn’t go for black-and-white. Granted, the film has a handful of artful shots, mainly toward the end, but nothing spectacular for the majority of its 108-minute duration.
Freud’s Last Session promotes healthy debate, respecting our differences and being inquisitive about our world. There is much mention of sexuality, religion, atheism and death. The two philosophers debate whether Freud’s daughter Anna’s lesbianism comes from her attachment to him and whether it is or isn’t a sin. Drugs are also mentioned. Freud is battling oral cancer and, in between drags of his cigar, takes morphine mixed with whiskey (so I suppose we should marvel that he can think clearly at all during his debate with Lewis). And in the lone bloody scene in the film, CS Lewis reaches into Freud's mouth and pulls out a prosthesis; there’s nothing gory shown, but Freud’s reaction and the act itself is enough to make you shudder.
I give Freud’s Last Session 3 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 12 to 18, plus adults. Freud’s Last Session releases in theaters on January 19, 2024.
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