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 rather underused in explaining just why this erstwhile atheist became a convert of some fervency. It's all nicely staged - but maybe that's where it ought to be seen. A three act play using a few well decorated rooms and some rainy sound effects. The two men work well together on screen, but it's still too much of a missed opportunity for us to wallow a bit more in the complex and sometimes quite humorous views of these two sophisticated intellectuals - and that's a shame.
