Freud's disapproval of Jung's affair seems pretty mild for a man whose field is the complex intricacies of the human soul. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure, portrays a subtle conflict - Freud is jealous of the fact that Jung married a rich woman - that will eventually result in differing approaches to psychiatry. It's a talky film, but the characters are so rich that even the rhetorical shortcuts are compel-ling: The human mind is also endlessly fascinating.

The result is a dreamy but somewhat stilted historical document whose sexual obsessions come with the sense of remove that sometimes characterizes Cronenberg's films. Spielrein, who went on to become an eminent psychiatrist herself, seems pathologically needy, but never very sexual, and Jung's turmoil comes across as morose opportunism. Mortensen provides some acerbic spark, but the real treat is a small role by Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, a psychotherapist who believes that indulging all his desires is the road to mental health: He's an educated rake. "Freud's obsession with sex has a great deal to do with the fact that he never gets any," Gross says. Possibly, it's as simple as that.

WHAT OTHER CRITICS ARE SAYING

Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the outstanding lead performances of Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender.

- Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Cronenberg's film is at once a lucid movie of ideas, a compel-ling narrative, and a splendidly acted love story.

- J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Using a dialogue-heavy approach that's unusual for Cronenberg, his film is skilled at the way it weaves theory with the inner lives of its characters. We are learning, yet never feel we're being taught.

- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The actors give it their all, especially Knightley, whose jaw-jutting, heavily accented and unfairly criticized portrayal gives the film its fighting spirit.

- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

A Dangerous Method concerns itself primarily with sex, but what's most shocking is how conservative it turns out to be.

- Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

Cronenberg has made an elegant film, with spanking. There's some mildly kinky sex in A Dangerous Method, but Cronenberg makes it neither exploitive nor so tasteful that it loses its charge.

- Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline

Trouble is, Freud and Jung's meeting of the minds is never quite as compelling as the collision of the two bodies back in Zurich.

- Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

Even a supporting turn by Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, a fellow psychiatrist, cocaine addict and unapologetic adulterer, fails to enliven the movie: A Dangerous Method makes even a cokehead hedonist boring.

- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald