Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud's star pupil, quickly establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with inside the psychoanalytical community before shaking the foundation of modern science to its core.

SYNOPSIS:

On the eve of beginning a two-year prison sentence, the controversial-yet-pioneering psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich recounts his life story to the viewer. Similar in style to AMADEUS and similar in scope to MALCOLM X, the story begins with his traumatic childhood. Reich weaves in and out of various events that shaped his early life before he meets the godfather of psychology, Sigmund Freud. He quickly establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with inside the psychoanalytical community.

Freud sees much promise in the brash and bold Reich, but the external sociopolitical forces that attempt to steer society conflict with Reich at every step of his journey, as does Reich's unwavering quest for the truth. He follows Freud's libido theory to its logical conclusion and becomes a man without a country along the way. He moves from post-WWI Vienna to Berlin, to Oslo, then is forced to flee Europe in 1939 as the Nazis seize more power. He loses people close to him -- lovers, friends, mentors -- as he creeps closer and closer to a major scientific discovery.

He then arrives in America, where the hope of a better life -- to live and work in peace -- turns out to be anything but. He shares news of his discovery with Einstein, a receptive audience who later rebuffs him just like everyone else has. Coincidence or conspiracy, he's then pursued by an increasingly fascist American corporate-government infrastructure, which gets the better of him in the end. He dies in federal prison at age 60.

REICH