Set on the day before the start of World War II, Westend Films has released the first trailer for Freud’s Last Session. The film, adapted from the stage play (itself adapted from the Armand Nicholi book The Question Of God), is scheduled to be released Christmas of 2023.

For anyone familiar with the titular figures on whom the story is based, it is understandable the premise will leave them scratching their heads. In reality, both men never met. So ultimately, what you see is Armand’s best distillation of what a clash of ideas would have looked like between arguably, two of the greatest minds of their time.

Starring Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins (The Father/Silence Of The Lambs) as Freud, and Emmy nominee Matthew Goode (The Crown/Downton Abbey) as Lewis, the film follows what seems like an intellectual joust over the existence of God, and meaning of that question to life itself.

In reality, though the two men never meet, there is a marked difference in how these beliefs play out in each man’s life.

Freud would end his own life to avoid the pain of a debilitating illness. Lewis, passes away, not long after experiencing the death of his wife (an event dramatized in the movie Shadowlands, in which Lewis is incidentally played by Hopkins).

Directed by Matt Brown (The Man Who Knew Infinity), the film is expected to be released on Christmas of 2023.