As war starts to rage, two esteemed figures clash over the biggest question of all: Does God Exist?
It’s September 1939, and England has declared war on Germany. The “father of psychoanalysis,” Sigmund Freud (Academy Award-winner Anthony Hopkins), summons author/Oxford theologian C.S. Lewis (Emmy-nominee Matthew Goode) to his home.
Freud and his family, including his daughter Anna, also a psychoanalyst, fled Vienna and Hitler’s invading forces; Lewis, whose Narnia books will bring him acclaim, is a former atheist who’s now a devout Christian.
Freud aims to have a debate with Lewis about the younger man’s views and the damage — reflected in Nazi atrocities — that unquestioned belief brings. But Lewis has a convert’s courage, which stokes the 83-year-old Freud’s intensity.
Meanwhile, Anna Freud plans to reveal truths to her father, including how their intense attachment has affected her, as well as her life with lesbian lover Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, with whom Anna started a center for childhood psychology. It’s essential to Anna that she tell everything to her father — who spent years analyzing Anna, as he did other family members — because the jaw cancer Freud has battled for years is worsening, and the famous psychoanalyst plans to commit suicide before the pain gets any worse.
Freud’s mortality, and what Lewis believes comes after death, further fuels their discussion, as the two men clash and question each other about science, faith, love, the human condition, and what divides — and could possibly unite — the aspirations of the mind and the needs of the soul.
“Freud’s Last Session” explores questions facing all of us, and sees a historical moment that echoes current conflicts, seeks to understand free will, faith, and mortality, and explores how two renowned intellects find connection across a seemingly unbridgeable difference.
“Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode deliver sterling performances. What a complete pleasure to watch this great actor at the top of his game.” — Pete Hammond, Deadline