Freud's Last Session (2023)

I will be honest that normally I wouldn't have seen this film at the cinema but rather have waited for it to come out on streaming but its been a few weeks since my last visit (Furiosa) and it was just nice to see something and this seemed to be the only thing on that a) I hadn't seen and b) was on at a decent time. Normally early on a Saturday morning is ideal for me. This was one of those rare instances where I was the only one in the screening, that's the first time since 'A Haunting in Venice' back in September 2023. This tells of a possibly true story where Sigmund Freud (played by Anthony Hopkins) has a discussion/debate with C.S. Lewis. We know that this may not be true because the text at the very end says that Freud met up with an 'Oxford Don' but there was no name and it possibly could have been Lewis.

The film largely centres around religion and faith with Lewis being a believer and Freud not. There are some interesting scenes where they discuss the points in each case but after a while it did feel like a lot of talk about things that ultimately didn't really matter. What I was more interested in was the dynamic between Freud and Lewis because its an interesting one but I think that the dialogue could have been made easier to understand and also I think that the a better job could have been done to make the flashbacks seem a bit more obvious as it took a moment or two for me to realise this wasn't happening in 1939.  The fact that Freud had mouth cancer was one that because a recurring point throughout the film and I think that this is where Hopkins does his best work because Freud is clearly a smart person but his willingness to accept his fate is something that doesn't seem to happen too much in stories. Matthew Goode is also very good as C.S. Lewis, the what would now be called PTSD of Lewis' experiences in the First World War are briefly touched upon at various points throughout the film but it never makes Lewis seem like a lesser character but adds the discussion and make him a perfect person to discuss faith and god.

Despite this effectively being a two-hander, Sigmund's daughter Anna is also involved in the story although at a slight distance because there is the subplot about her dependency on her father and what sort of relationship the two of them have and when a friend of Sigmund's wants to date her even though he is 20 years older than her, it suggests that the relationship is at best odd. There is also what would have felt like a tacked on plot point if it weren't true and that Anna had feelings for someone else.

Freud's Last Session isn't a terrible film but an average one at best. This is the second Anthony Hopkins film I have seen at the cinema (One Life) and that is a better film although I do think that Freud is a more interesting character because he is a more complex one and the role in One Life was written to be a much more emotional character but it does show that even at 86 years of age, he is still capable of delivering strong and attention grabbing performances.