Movie Review: Anthony Hopkins shines in 'Freud's Last Session' – ABC News

“Freud’s Final Session,” starring Anthony Hopkins as Sigmund Freud, provides to a string of sterling late-chapter performances by the 86-year-old actor. He was the soul of “Armageddon Time,” the explanation to see “The Father” and the papal foil to Jonathan Pryce’s Pope Francis in “The Two Popes.” Except for James Grey’s extra cinematically composed “Armageddon Time,” the flicks have supplied easy, stagy showcases for Hopkins, a lion in winter.

“Freud’s Final Session,” which expands in theaters this weekend, additionally comes from the stage and, like “The Two Popes,” facilities on the tete-a-tete of mental opposites. Mark St. Germain’s 2009 two-character play introduced collectively Freud and C.S. Lewis (performed by Matthew Goode within the movie) for a speculative assembly between the 2 in 1939 London.

An aged Freud, affected by oral most cancers, prepares to obtain the Oxford tutorial at his London dwelling whereas conflict with Germany is rising inevitable. The factual leaping off level is that Freud, three weeks earlier than his dying, is recorded as assembly with an unnamed Oxford don. As Freud’s daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) prepares to depart within the morning, he mentions Lewis’ impending arrival. “The Christian apologist?” she responds. “Yah,” he chuckles.

Their dialog, which makes up the majority of the movie, imagines a non secular debate between the daddy of psychoanalysis, a proud atheist and man of science, and the theological Lewis, a believer who within the years after “Freud’s Final Session” takes place would pen his Christian apologetic novel “The Screwtape Letters” and, later, the fantasy parables of “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

If their antagonistic positions did not make for sufficient drama, air raid sirens are sounding (Hitler has simply taken Poland) and Freud’s well being is unhealthy sufficient that he, in between dripping morphine into his whiskey, a number of instances eyes a suicide tablet in the course of the day. Loss of life and historical past buffer their speak of God, worry and ache.

However the components by no means fairly cohere in “Freud’s Final Session.” The rhythm of dialog feels uneven and lacks the probing give and take that may electrify a two-hander. Freud — or it it Hopkins? — so dominates their speak. Goode, with much less to chew on, stays extra observational and eliminated for his Lewis to ever totally interact Freud.

Director Matthew Brown, who shares screenwriting credit score with St. Germain, has artificially “opened up” the play to incorporate flashbacks and aspect plots, most notably that of Anna, whose excessive devotion to her father elements into Freud’s discussions of sexuality. But Anna’s story, together with a relationship with a lady, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (Jodi Balfour), not acknowledged by her father, is simply too advanced to graft into the theological debate. It seems like a film in its personal proper. That “Freud’s Final Session” is overly murky in shadows additionally contributes to the film’s lack of readability.

However Freud and Lewis’ dialogue typically finds compelling factors of commonality. Fantasy figures prominently into each minds — Freud in his evaluation of desires and Lewis within the dreamworlds he’ll create. And each come to their beliefs partly from childhood experiences that coloration their lives. “I’ve solely two phrases to supply humanity: Develop up,” says Freud.

And Hopkins stays riveting. Some three many years after memorably taking part in Lewis, himself, in 1993’s “Shadowlands,” he now performs throughout from the novelist, including to the poignance of the film.

However I think my reminiscence will bleed a few of these late movies of Hopkins’ collectively. In every, he grapples with a lifetime of accomplishment simply as he does current pains and joys. He may be plucking an azalea in “Freud’s Final Session,” or watching a grandson fly a mannequin rocket in “Armageddon Time.” However every efficiency crackles with wit, knowledge and playfulness within the face of the inevitable. They add as much as a wistful cycle of movies of massive questions and small moments.

“Freud’s Final Session,” a Sony Photos Classics launch, is rated PG-13 by the Movement Image Affiliation for thematic materials, some bloody/violent pictures, sexual materials and smoking. Operating time: 108 minutes. Two stars out of 4.

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