Westworld actor and two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins will be taking on the role of the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud in a film adaptation of Mark St. Germain’s play Freud’s Last Session.
Launching directly in the Cannes Market, the project is being shopped by WestEnd Films and CAA Media Finance. The film is reportedly being directed by Matthew Brown (The Man Who Knew Infinity) and the script is penned by the same playwright behind the original play, St. Germain. The play, which first premiered in 2009, has been described by the New York Times as “a sharp, lively discourse, and audience members searching for engaging debate will be pleased…Mark St. Germain’s script is astute, and the humor is plentiful.”
Freud’s Last Session centers on legendary Austrian psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud who invites a young C. S. Lewis, the British writer who is best known for having written The Chronicles of Narnia book series, into his home in the English capital. Set on the eve before World War Two is fully set in motion, the two men verbally clash about numerous profound topics like love, sexuality, and God’s existence. In addition, it also explores Dr. Freud’s unique relationship with his homosexual daughter Anna Freud, who would also follow in his footsteps and become a psychoanalyst, and Lewis's unorthodox romance with the mother of his best friend. The film, like the play, will blend together the past, the present, and fantasy, all from within the walls of Freud’s study.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Brown made a statement saying: “Beyond my own intellectual curiosity and inclination towards this piece, there is a deep recognition of how incredibly timely and important this film is. We live in an age that is so ideologically polarized, where everyone is stuck in their own tribes, with no real dialogue. I want to make a film for all audiences that is emotional, thought-provoking and creative. A film that asks the big questions, while investigating what is at the heart of the human condition: love, faith and mortality.”
As Brown says, the project is indeed timely as it shows how two different geniuses with different points of view are able to have an exquisitely productive and meaningful conversation. In an age when people hide in opposite trenches of an ideological war, It should prove that dialogue is always an option and oftentimes the solution.
The movie is set to begin filming in London in late Fall.