Freud's Last Session: The Actors Give the Arguments Life

Freud's Last Session imagines a meeting between Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis in London at the beginning of the Second World War. Their discussion of God, belief and human nature provides the core of a film adapted from Mark St. Germain's play.

Anthony Hopkins conveys Freud's physical frailty without diminishing his intellectual alertness. Matthew Goode gives Lewis both sharpness and emotional depth. Their chemistry makes the disagreement lively, with the people behind the positions remaining visible.

Matthew Brown's chamber-like direction suits the concentration on conversation. Freud's study provides an intimate setting in which looks and gestures can matter as much as an argument's wording.

Flashbacks and dream sequences attempt to expand the material beyond the room. They do not always integrate smoothly and can interrupt the flow that the actors have established. The theatrical origin is neither automatically a flaw nor something the film entirely escapes.

The exchanges treat different responses to suffering, death and belief respectfully, without insisting on a simple winner. Viewers expecting dynamic external action may find the dialogue-heavy structure tiring; those drawn to intellectual encounters have more to enjoy.

I find it worth seeing for the performances and the questions they make immediate. The filmmaking is not consistently convincing, but the central pair give an imagined philosophical debate considerable human energy.