In September of 1939, as Hitler rose to power, Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins), met with an unnamed Oxford don who many believe to have been C. S. Lewis (Matthew Goode). The two potentially talked over a variety of topics about life, death, religion, sex, and their respective bodies of work. Suffering from oral cancer, Freud would die by suicide weeks after the meeting and Lewis would go on to become one of Great Britain’s beloved authors. 

Freud’s Last Session is a work of speculative, historical fiction directed by Matt Brown and is an adaptation of Mark St. Germain’s stage play of the same name. With a screenplay from both Brown and St. Germain, the 108-minute film premiered at the AFI Fest before embarking on its limited theatrical run from Sony Pictures Classics. The film is handsomely dressed by John Neligan and Claudia Parker who provide Hopkins and Goode a stately arena to interrogate each other’s philosophies among the heavy wooden furniture, the swirling of cigar smoke, and the clinking of whiskey glasses. 

Its roots as a stage play are evident as the film largely unfolds in long discussion-centric scenes in the mostly singular location of Freud’s estate. There is even a scene late in the film where Freud ascends the stairs, yet the camera stays put on Lewis, calling up to the old man. The script is looking to cover a lot of topics across its relatively short runtime, but because the film also splits time following Freud’s daughter, Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), and her partner Dorothy (Jodi Balfour), it does both threads a disservice as it is not able to get deeper into any of these themes besides a cursory pass. With Freud already known around town as “the sex doctor,” the two stories in the film are not completely separate in theme as Dorothy tries to understand Anna’s obsessive fealty towards her father and Freud tries to unravel Lewis’ affections towards his deceased friend’s mother. Had the script been restructured to flip the driver of the narrative – to allow Anna’s story to unfold while her father and Lewis debating in the background – it would have moved in a much more cinematic way because it would have allowed an actual narrative to unfold. 

While it stumbles on the page, both Hopkins and Goode deliver well-metered performances. The script does not seem to have a preference between the two men, and thankfully it is not just setting up gotcha moments as many films that circle religion often are; either pro or against. Unfortunately, neither of their arguments are fleshed out enough to be an exciting clash of an unstoppable force hitting an unbreakable wall, so it often teeters into the realm of two men rambling. Narratively, the script gets away with this as Freud is in pain and under medication, so his mind is racing faster than his cancer-ridden mouth can get out the words, but for audiences, it is just a nonsensical waterfall of half-formed and undefended thoughts. Hopkins, though, shines as a doddering old man and the lauded octogenarian always finds some action to toil away at in the scene. Sure, he has a home-field advantage, but that constant movement also seems to give him the edge as it keeps him in control over the much more stoic Lewis as he moves the pair from room to room. 

Outside of the estate, the secondary arc following Anna is a bit of a mess. Her arc is underdeveloped and progresses in fractured moments so by the time we realize that her story is supposed to hold some weight, we have already grown bored with the diversion away from Freud and Lewis. This is further complicated because she often finds herself in situations where she is in the wrong, yet we are supposed to build sympathy towards her. She is abandoning her class, she is shutting out her partner, and she is running through town like mad looking for medicine for her father, but because the film would rather tell than show us their relationship, we have to rely on everyone else’s less-than-glowing account of their dynamic and her devotion to him becomes questionable and without redemption. It is a thankless role, and Fries just does not have enough to work with on the page to be able to pull it off. 

Freud’s Last Session is a challenging piece, not so much because of its content, but because of its lack of content. Neither of these characters at the center have strong enough, or at least fully realized, convictions so their debate is received as idle chatter. Why Lewis holds Frued in such high regard to send him a copy of his novel, The Pilgrim’s Regress, remains a mystery, and because we never fully understand why Lewis is so interested in what the laughingstock doctor thinks about his work, the whole premise of their meeting also eludes us. Had this simple framework been more defined, it would have helped us account for some of what they discussed, at least in the beginning before the conversation took on a life of its own, but that would have required the script to interrogate much more deeply both men’s beliefs and the film is rather content to just bristle up against the profound in lieu of actual exploration.