Going into Matthew Brown’s Freud’s Last Session, I knew very little about it, other than it was being championed as a vehicle for the eminent Anthony Hopkins, who takes up the role of Freud, who matches wit with Matthew Goode’s C. S. Lewis over the roles of religion and Man in our lives.

It helps that Hopkins is such a strong presence on screen that, as Freud, he can effortlessly countenance Lewis’ position on several levels throughout the story. However, what comes out of Mark St. Germain’s script, co-written by Brown, is a statically told story with layers of emotion that gently pour out.

At its crux, Freud’s Last Session is ultimately about the relationships we maintain, the commonalities that we find, and that are shaped and influenced by our experiences. Both men relish in the idea of fantasy, which, to C. S. Lewis’ credit, would become, and had already been, a focal point in his career. On the other side of the spectrum is the reserved, observant Freud. Hopkins plays the observations in a tactile sense. This gives more meaning to Lewis’ visit, and both men are resolute in their convictions: Freud, an atheist, does not believe that the god Lewis presents exists. On the other hand, Lewis does not accept Freud’s flippant, though educated, dismissal of a higher power.

Set on September 3, 1939, the two men set out to debate the future of mankind, the existence of god, and the narrow divergences that exist between these two realms as the triggering dream sequences that draw both men together coalesce into an intelligent story.

As mentioned, Hopkins is still grand in stature, effortless in performance, and flawless in execution, right down to the pains relating to the cancer that had invaded his body. For Freud, the primary fear is the future of his daughter, Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), who has tended to his needs since fleeing Austria prior; the constant pain that radiates from those events drives Freud to the point that he comments on the comfortable home he lives in reminds him of his home in Austria but is not Austria. On the other hand, the young Lewis is driven by the constant reminders of his battlefield traumas from World War I.

Goode holds his own opposite Hopkins and shines when he recollects his memories, with Freud saying that he observes far more from what is not said than what is said. Brown drives the point home of how connections are formed between two people out of our events and experiences, that life is not a dream, even though it might feel like one, and plays it through a series of dream sequences and flashbacks.

For those looking for a laugh, few are to be had in Freud’s Last Session; the drama behind the film’s traumas is omnipresent. The humor is dry, though a welcomed respite from the ensuing dramatics. Yet, the one action set piece drives home the points made – we are the sum of our parts. The energy we put into the world is as much about those experiences as our values guide them, hence the story’s constant tug between life without a devout belief in a higher power and life with that devotion.

What caught my attention was that both men, as framed in the story, were fleeing from the same crux, finding peace in a fantastical world and being delivered from a higher power, with neither man having true peace. The story also touches on the then-accepted vagaries of homosexuality, playing the theme out for what was to come.

Freud’s Last Session is an even-keeled, solid drama. It makes its points through strongly derived dialogue, marked with terrific turns from Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode. It achieves its end-game while finding common ground for a better future than the present the film is set in.

Freud’s Last Session

Directed by: Matthew Brown

Screenplay by: Mark St. Germain and Matthew Brown, Based on the play by: Mark St. Germain, and Suggested by The Question of God by: DB. Armand, M. Nicholl, Jr.