Freud’s Last Session Review – Brilliant Performances Drive Complex Story

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Category: Film

Published on Tuesday, 31 October 2023 16:12

Written by Janet Walker

Freud's Last Session, from Sony Pictures Classics, presents a masterclass in performance through the fictitious meeting of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and theologian C.S. Lewis as the elder atheist, nearing death, debates the plausibility of religion.

The film, which screened at AFI Fest 2023, begins in the home of C.S. Lewis, played by Matthew Goode, as the radio is playing announcing the beginning of World War II where he speaks kindly to a woman, which is assumed to be his wife/companion, "We've made it through one war, we'll make it through another." He arrives in London, where parents in desperation are sending their children to the countryside to keep them away from the possibility of death, sad goodbyes and promises of home soon are heard.

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Immediately the scene cuts to a home in London, where Anna Freud, played by Liv Lisa Fries, is chiding her father, Sigmund, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, to be kind to his guest. As she leaves the house, she and Lewis pass on the sidewalk, and she pleasantly prepares him as he is about to walk into the analytical fire.

Once the door opens and Freud and Lewis are in the same room, each attempt, while intermittingly listening for bombs and switching on the news to determine if seeking shelter is imperative. As an observer to the theorists each present and defend their respective religious beliefs, each wandering further into the other's reasoning to by chance glimpse the possibility of entertaining a half-notion that the other could possibly be correct in their belief.

As it is, Lewis, who lived through World War I is plagued by PTSD and when they are summoned to take shelter in the basement of a church, he relives the harshest of those memories. Comforted by Freud, we see the ability to have vastly different beliefs and opinions and still meet in a common ground of humanity.

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This storyline segues as Freud seizes the opportunity to step into the mind's door that opened and walk Lewis through his war trauma. A layer of Lewis' character is pulled away as we understand he made a death pact with his best friend that if anything should happen to either of them each would care for their mother's. It is here we learn that the woman, introduced in the beginning scenes, Janie Moore, played by Orla Brady, was in fact the mother of his dearest wartime friend who died on the battlefield.

Freud, of course, who believed all psychosis that every person experiences is due to childhood. To debate here seems irrelevant, as it is presented in the film, he is dying and his daughter Anna, who is an accomplished child psychologist in her own right, is tethered to her father, to the point of her own determinant leaves her lecture because her father is in need.

The possibility of the day and time, the period in which Freud lived made these assumptions logical are clearly played out as we understand Freud is dying of oral cancer, almost ironic one could say for someone who exercised his opinions to lose the ability to converse possibly, especially in the context of the film and conversation, had some otherworldly connotation.

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Lewis we also understand is a caretaker, possibly to avoid real connection, he bears the burden of his dying friend and therefore will not leave Freud in his time of need.

Freud's Last Session is a masterclass in artistic expression. Sir Anthony Hopkins is in top form and Matthew Goode, who matches Hopkins in quality, verbally spar with the skill of expert swordsmen communicating with rapier wit, biting sarcasm, and even in the silence delivering a powerful, complex, layered story.

Freud's Last Session opens December 22, 2023. See it.

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Country: UK.

Language: English.

Runtime: 118minutes.

Director: Matt Brown.

Producer: Alan Greisman, Hannah Leader, Tristan Lynch, Rick Nicita, Robert Silverman, Meg Thomson.

Screenwriter: Mark St. Germain.

Cast: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode, Liv Lisa Fries, Jodi Balfour, Orla Brady, Rhys Mannion, David Shields, Stephen Campbell Moore, Padraic Delaney, Tarek Bishara, Anna Amalie Blomeyer, Cara Christie, Gary Buckley, George Andrew-Clarke.