I lasted forty-five minutes with this one. The premise was intriguing, and the semi-low score could easily be attributed to people finding a slow-pace talkie boring, or people on either side of the theist/atheist aisle being offended. As an atheist, who was brought up Christian, and who enjoys debates on religiosity between intelligent opponents, this seemed right up my alley. And I do like Anthony Hopkins. Especially since his absolutely stellar career-peaking performance in The Father (watch it if you haven't, and DO NOT read the synopsis or any review before you do). Unfortunately, it starts out really poorly, with the virtual Freud incorrectly attributing the virtual Einstein with the 21st-century internet meme, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I don't blame the average memecow for repeating this nonsense, let alone attributing it to Einstein, as the number of clowns repeating it seems to be exponentially increasing. It's now even reached "Freud" via Anthony Hopkins on screen. But it doesn't bode well that writers of a movie about Freud and C.S. Lewis meeting up to debate the existence of the Christian god would be so ignorant to think that someone like Einstein would utter such nonsense. They're not even considering it to the point of googling "did Einstein really say this thing? did he not have a dict…

Near the end of his life in 1939, Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) held one last session at his London home after fleeing the encroaching Nazi oppression in his native Vienna. At that time, just as the German blitzkrieg against Poland was beginning, Freud is said to have met with an Oxford scholar, believed to be author and theologian C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode), in a lengthy session in which the duo discussed a variety of subjects. In writer-director Matt Brown’s hypothetical meeting between them, viewers witness the two visionaries debate such topics as atheism vs. faith, science vs. religion/spirituality, the nature of fear, their respective backgrounds (including the personal demons that have haunted them) and their relationships with family members (particularly Freud’s arm’s-length connection with his lesbian daughter, Anna (Liv Lisa Fries)), among others. Their conversations are both mesmerizing and revelatory, uncovering aspects of each of them that most of us probably never knew. And, in the process, it becomes apparent that this session was as much for Freud’s benefit as it was for Lewis, given that the good doctor was in the late stages of oral cancer and contemplating how to make peace with his impending death. The dialogues between the two delve into some very heady material, the kind of discussions that movies rarely, if ever, deal with in such depth, especially as…

Though there is no evidence that this meeting ever actually happened, it does make for quite an intriguing premise. Renowned, but ailing, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Sir Anthony Hopkins) invites Oxford University professor C.S. "Jack" Lewis (Matthew Goode) for a conversation. The latter man is late which irks his host, especially when his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) has to leave him to go to work and he is running out of the medicine (morphine) that he uses to control the pain from his advancing mouth cancer. Initially slated for the shortest of chats, the two men - who take completely opposing views on the subject of God's existence - start to bond a little. Their conversation is conducted behind a veneer of politeness, but at times is quite intellectually brutal. It's these few scenes that set the thing on fire, and the quick-wittedness of both men does raise a smile, and a thought or two too. Thing is, there just aren't enough of them to sustain what is otherwise a rather messily conceived drama that sort of meanders along with too many hmphs and shrugs, the obligatory series of laughs from Sir Anthony and a disappointing paucity of actual rigorous debate. Way too much time is languished on his daughter's relationship with Dorothy Burlingham (Jodi Balfour) - and of her father's disapproval of it, and though flashback's of Lewis's Great War trauma do add context, it's all…

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