My wife and I watched this because we are Chris Eigeman fans from the glory years of the Indie Renaissance of the 1990’s, when he stared in Whit Stillman’s two masterpieces from that era, Metropolitan and Barcelona. I feel Eigeman’s career never became what it should have been. He had the most marvelous delivery, endlessly pleasing to listen to, and he was incredibly warm and charismatic on screen. I still can’t understand why he did not become a huge star.

The Treatment is really two movies going on simultaneously. One is a simple tale of a lonely prep school teacher who falls for a young rich widow whose child attends the school. If they had left it at that, it would have been fine. Eigeman and Famke Janssen (Lenore, in Taken) have a nice easy chemistry, and Harris Yulin is good as Eigeman’s jerky, pushy father. And some of the scenes where Eigeman teaches are really nicely done. If they had fleshed out this story, it could have been a nice little indie film about finding love and starting over.

The problem is the other movie that is going on simultaneously, which darkly chronicles Eigeman’s bizarre psychoanalysis at the hands of “therapist” Ian Holm. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what this psychiatrist was trying to accomplish, or what he wanted Eigeman to do or not do, but it’s hard not to get the idea that he was trying (perhaps unconsciously) to either destroy him or drive him insane. The scenes are borderline absurd, and the only thing I took away from it all is a feeling that Eigeman was damn lucky to finally get away from the jerk. I’m not sure this is what the film intended, however. The closing credits had a dedication to “the last of the great Freudians,” which although somewhat ambiguous does imply to me that all the crazy-making shrinkage in the film is supposed to be interpreted as important and meaningful. Frankly, almost none of it made any sense.

In the final analysis, I think the only reason to see The Treatment is if you love Chris Eigeman and just want to delight in listening to him speak! It streams on Netflix.