Keira Knightley: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Sabina Spielrein - A Dangerous Method (2011)

It's often the case that the performances that stick out in an actor's career are those which make the best out of somewhat inferior material. Ricardo Montalbán, best known for his title role in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, claimed to have spent his entire career making slightly sub-par roles more interesting. The same goes for Knightley's performance in A Dangerous Method, in which she is the saving grace in a disappointing affair. A Dangerous Method explores the relationship between famed psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own play The Talking Cure, it explores the two men's friendship in relation to Jung's affair with a patient (Knightley). Having named Jung as his heir, Freud begins to bully his protégé, using his relationship with Spielrein against him while Jung takes Sabina under his wing as both a lover and a mentor in her own studies. While most of David Cronenberg's work has a visceral intelligence and kinetic energy about it, A Dangerous Method is surprisingly talky and stagey. But while the male leads struggle to get anything out of the material, Knightley delivers a very convincing portrayal of hysteria and frustrated sexuality. It's a lot busier than any performance we've seen from her before, but she brings the kind of energy and emotional conviction that the rest of the film is crying out for. It's worth checking out just for her performance, and Cronenberg would be wise to work with her again.