6.5/10
Considering how tepid I usually find his films, I've seen an unusually large amount of David Cronenberg's works. ADM is probably the most restrained I've seen from him, but falls squarely into the same "it's not bad, I guess" realm as the rest of his movies do for me. The best thing about this is the acting - Fassbender is endlessly watchable, again dragging a film up to higher levels than it's worth (see also Shame). Knightley's performance is over the top, and a little awkward in those more hysterical moments, but she settles into her role quite nicely. Mortensen never really seemed to get a full grip on Freud, but he has less to work with than the other two.
It's hard to really see what the movie is going for most of the time. It dances around Freud and Jung's psychoanalytical theories, Freud and Jung's friendship and falling out, Jung and his patient/mistress relationship with Sabina, Sabina's evolution from mental patient to psychiatrist to mother and wife...but it can't coalesce these themes into anything coherent and the movie suffers from a serious lack of focus, made worse by some horribly choppy and almost comical editing. But the subject matter is always interesting and the performers make it so it's never a chore to watch either. Just doesn't reach the pedigree you might have expected given who's involved.
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