A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011)

[matrixschmatrix]

To some degree, I think I'm all the more impressed with the characterizations of women in his work when even the even the women who get overwhelmed by whatever ringer he puts them into are smarter and deeper than most of the victorious heroines of other movies.

[colinr0380]

From the same cloth, she's a sister to Genevieve Bujold in Dead Ringers, although in that case Claire is no match for the combined horror of Beverly and Eliot.

I think she is, in the sense that she totally overwhelms the brother's ordered lifestyle and the way that she angrily walks out of the film (and sticks to her guns when she briefly reappears later on) once what they have been up to comes to light! There have always been strong female characters in Cronenberg's films (think of that scene at the art exhbition in Scanners where Stephen Lack as the 'hero' is enjoying using his newly-focused scanning technique to get the details of an important address from the mind of a reticent gallery owner, only to then have Jennifer O'Neill teach him a lesson in using his powers wantonly!)

I think unambiguous heroism isn't particularly a Cronenberg trait - see the way that most of the men in his films are weak and ineffectual, easily manipulated and prone to destroying themselves in order to achieve a 'happy' ending, or the way that the ending usually take the form of rather disturbing quotable slogans ("Long live the new flesh" in Videodrome, the various cries of "Death to the demon(ess)...Death to eXistneZ/PiLgrimage/TrancendenZ" throughout and climaxing eXistenZ, "Welcome to Annexia" in Naked Lunch, "Maybe the next one" in Crash, and particularly "We've won" in Scanners)

EDIT: Or more simply, I agree with matrix's comment above!

[hearthesilence]

Just put this one and halfway through it, it hits me how this film is totally the opposite of The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, two movies drowning in Oscar nominations that quite frankly do shitty jobs of presenting the science of their subjects. Cronenberg does nothing to dumb down the birth of psychoanalysis here. Actual dialogue and letters are drawn from real-life notes and conversations from the film's real life characters. Nothing's watered down, randomly omitted or replaced with grossly inaccurate but "easy to understand" concepts. The result is a much more compelling and interesting film, one where you can actually engage and take part in the same intellectual passions of these people. No such experience in the others where they give you almost no sense of Hawking's accomplishments (much less a real understanding of why he was initially so controversial, outside of some walkouts at a lecture) or give a complete misrepresentation of Turing's brilliant achievements. Still rankles me that this film was totally ignored by the Academy, with barely a theatrical release. Everything about it - the direction, the script, the acting - completely puts those other two films to shame. For anyone with half a working brain, this isn't a difficult film to engage - you even have Kiera Knightley, Michael Fassbender and the king of Middle Earth for crissakes.