10 Completely Unexpected Films By Famous Directors

4. A Dangerous Method - David Cronenberg's Straightforward Period Piece

Cronenbergian is not a term reserved for filmmakers of the faint of heart. 'Cronenbergian' conjures up images of James Woods reaching into the hole in his stomach for a handgun, of Jeff Goldblum dissolving a man's hand with his acid vomit, of automobile fetishists making love (polite euphemism) to a woman's leg wound. It was surprising, then, when the man who spawned this term decided to give the violence and the ick and the psychological assaults a miss in 2011.

That was the year that saw the 19th David Cronenberg movie unleashed, and what would be that Canadian monster's latest gift to the world be but a fairly standard period piece about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Instead of being infused with uncomfortable psychology, A Dangerous Method is a movie about psychology, specifically its modern foundations.

Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen chew the fat as Jung and Freud, and aside from scenes of Fassbender trying to spank Keira Knightley's damaged patient back to sanity, the film is conventional, talky and a little bit, well, dull.