There’s a solid argument to be made that no other indie company, as well as Sony Pictures Classic, knows its audience. A small, boutique label that skews to older audiences and devoted cinephiles, the prestigious company is brilliant and strategic, especially regarding Oscar voters. The company has won 41 Academy Awards and has garnered 186 Academy Award nominations, the most prominent recent win being Anthony Hopkins’ Best Actor performance for “The Father” (2021). This win stunned many pundits who thought the late Chadwick Boseman would take the award. And they could play some spoilers or upsetters again with the upcoming film, “Freud’s Last Session,” starring Hopkins once more.
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For this new drama, the setting is London, September 3, 1939. The world is on the brink of war. In his final days, renowned neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (played by Anthony Hopkins), a recent escapee with his daughter from the Nazi regime, receives a visit from the formidable Oxford Don C.S. Lewis (the writer of “The Chronicles of Narnia” played by Matthew Goode). On this day, two of the greatest minds of the twentieth century intimately engage in a monumental session over the belief in the future of mankind and the existence of God.
Directed by Matthew Brown (“The Man Who Knew Infinity,” “Ropewalk”), the screenplay is from Brown and renowned American playwright, author, and film and television writer Mark St. Germain. Still, the meeting of these two men is a fictional one. Apart from Freud and Goode, the film stars Liv Lisa Fries, Jodi Balfour Pádraic Delaney, Stephen Campbell Moore as J. R. R. Tolkien, and many more.
Here’s the official synopsis:
On the eve of the Second World War, two of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, C.S. LEWIS and SIGMUND FREUD, converge for their own personal battle over the existence of God. FREUD’S LAST SESSION interweaves the lives of Freud and Lewis, past, present, and through fantasy, bursting from the confines of Freud’s study on a dynamic journey.
Could “Freud’s Last Session” upset the Oscar race, at least as an acting nod for Hopkins? Knowing Sony Pictures Classics’ track record, it’s always best to never count them out at least. “Freud’s Last Session” opens December 22 in New York & Los Angeles and then is TBD for broader expansion, but that’s obviously likely in early 2024.
