| Freud's Last Session | |
|---|---|
 US release poster | |
| Directed by | Matthew Brown |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on | Freud's Last Session by Mark St. Germain |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Ben Smithard |
| Edited by | Paul Tothill |
| Music by | Coby Brown |
Production companies |
|
| Distributed by |
|
Release dates |
|
Running time | 122 minutes[2] |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2.7 million[3][4] |
Freud's Last Session is a 2023drama film starringAnthony Hopkins,Matthew Goode,Liv Lisa Fries,Jodi Balfour,Jeremy Northam, andOrla Brady. It is based on the stage play of the same name byMark St. Germain, which itself is based upon the bookThe Question of God, byArmand Nicholi. The film was directed by Matthew Brown and written by St. Germain.
Freud's Last Session premiered at the 2023AFI Fest on October 27, 2023.Sony Pictures Classics released the film in a limited release in the United States on 22 December 2023, before expanding wide on 19 January 2024 to mixed reviews from critics.
A fictional meeting occurs betweenC. S. Lewis, nicknamed "Jack", andSigmund Freud, two days after the start of World War II. They debate theexistence of God, as Freud greatly resents Lewis's recent rejection of his own strain ofatheism in favour ofChristianity, and many other subjects. The two men discuss issues such as Lewis'spost-traumatic stress disorder as aWorld War I combat veteran,J. R. R. Tolkien andthe Inklings, and the nature of Freud's and Lewis's relationships with other people, such as Freud's daughter Anna, who iscodependent upon her father. However, she eventually introduces herlesbian lover,Dorothy Burlingham, to him.
At its close, the film records that Freud died bysuicide several weeks later due to the intense pain from hisoral cancer; Lewis became a famous author ofChristian literature, and the children he took in asevacuees during the war inspiredThe Chronicles of Narnia; Anna and Dorothy lived together for decades, and Anna became known as the founder ofchild psychology. The film notes that Freud met with an unidentifiedOxford don in the last days of his life, who could possibly have been Lewis.[5]
WestEnd Films and CAA Media Finance took the project for sales to theCannes Film Festival in May 2022 withAnthony Hopkins cast, and Matthew Brown on board as director for the St. Germain adaptation.[6] The film is produced by Alan Greisman, Rick Nicita, Meg Thomson and Hannah Leader, with production beginning in the U.K. in late January 2023.[7] However, for financial reasons Freud’sHampstead house and famous psychoanalyst couch were recreated in Dublin at theArdmore Studios.[8] A selection of props from the film (particularly the replica couch and garden tent chair) have since May 2023 been housed at theFreud Museum London. Co-produced by Aoife O’Sullivan and Tristan Orpen Lynch of Subotica Operations, the film received UK Global Screen Fund International Co-production funding.[9][10] An image from principal photography was released in April 2023 with the film entering the final stages of filming in Ireland.[11]
Freud's Last Session premiered at the 2023AFI Fest on October 27, 2023.[12] That same month,Sony Pictures Classics purchased the distribution rights for North America, the Middle East, India, Eastern Europe (excluding the CIS), and Turkey, as well as airlines worldwide; the company would subsequently extend its rights to Latin America and Asia excluding China, Japan and Korea.[13][14] It had a limited release in the United States on 22 December 2023 and in United Kingdom on 14 June 2024.[4]
Freud's Last Session grossed $906,283 in the United States and Canada and $1.8 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $2.7 million.[3][4]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 44% of 122 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode are a tremendously talented pair, butFreud's Last Session is too scattered and thinly written to take full advantage of their efforts."[15]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 48 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[16]
