It's out in theaters Wednesday: "Freud, The Last Confession," with Anthony Hopkins masterfully portraying the psychoanalyst.

On the eve of World War II, Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) takes refuge in London with his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries). Due to age and illness, the world-renowned psychoanalyst has become a bitter and capricious old man. But the professor's curiosity is piqued when a certain CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), a novelist and self-proclaimed Christian, mentions him in one of his publications. Their meeting, over the question of God, will turn into a duel...

Entrusting the great Anthony Hopkins with the role of Freud is certainly Matt Brown's most judicious idea for making a fake biopic about the famous neurologist. In a role of an aging man, as he played in Florian Zeller's The Father , which earned him an Oscar, the former Hannibal Lecter excels. And this is all the more so because, apart from a few flashbacks, the film focuses on a limited space-time: Freud's last days, and mainly explores his fictional meeting with the author CS Lewis (Matthew Goode, defector from the Downton Abbey series), who would later become known for The Chronicles of Narnia .

Great performance

From start to finish, this verbal joust, filmed with great classicism, fails to disguise its theatrical origins (it's an adaptation), but relies on the talent of its lead actor to captivate the audience. With his gravelly voice and stooped posture, Hopkins delivers a performance without straining and demonstrates, after having played Pablo Picasso, Benedict XVI, and Richard Nixon, his ability to portray striking and charismatic figures. Suffice it to say that the project rests on him, and that his partners, talented as they may be, are there to bring him to light.

Beyond this approach, Matt Brown offers a relevant reflection on the relationship between science and faith, embodied by the character of these two men from different generations and with opposing existential visions, Freud being resolutely pragmatic, while the future writer, who would move towards fantasy, gives more space to the imagination. A way of overcoming the trauma experienced during the Great War at a time when the world was turning upside down again with the rise of Hitler...

Paradoxically, it's when the screenplay addresses Freud's exile in London to escape the Nazis that it becomes more conventional, even though there was plenty to explore in greater depth about this period of his life. The same goes for his close relationship with his daughter, Anna, whom he forces into his service. Clearly, a deeper analysis of Freud's psyche was relevant and would have led to a more complex work. But the filmmaker still needed to dare to venture into this territory, which is not the case. C. Cop.

BY MATT BROWN (USA/Great Britain/Ireland), with Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode, Liv Lisa Fries... Drama. 1h50. Our rating: 2/5.