Hysteria (2012)

How sad is this?

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's 1880 London. Stress out women of all kinds are diagnosed with hysteria. The remedy is pelvic massage and the release of orgasm. Medicine still uses leeches and germs are a new concept. Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is fired from the hospital for changing with clean bandages. After many rejections, he gets a job with Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) who treats only women. Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is his rebellious suffragette daughter and Emily (Felicity Jones) is the obedient one who studies phrenology. The constant 'treatments' are wearing out Mortimer's hand. His gentleman inventor flatmate Edmund St. John-Smythe (Rupert Everett) helps develop a vibrator for the work.The subject matter is titillating amusement. Everybody plays it straight with a smile. It's light fun with a bit of serious issue. It's not big laughs but it's an enjoyable little rom-com. They all play the roles great especially Gyllenhaal's firecracker act.

In 1880's London an ambitious doctor called Mortimer Granville gets a job with Dr Dalrymple, who has the unique skill of relieving his female patients' frustrations with pelvic massaging. Building on this concept, Granville turns a feather duster into an instrument of pleasure, essentially creating the world's first vibrator.It's pretty unusual that a film is based entirely around the creation of the vibrator, but we are talking about quite possibly THE most popular sex-toy in the world. The story is actually quite an interesting one, albeit an amusing one. How director Tanya Wexler chose to tell the story would determine the success of the movie.Maybe it's because she's a woman, but Wexler has ended up telling the story exactly as it needed to be told – with tongue firmly in cheek. Using Stephen and Jonah Lisa Dyer's solid script, Wexler has crafted a light-hearted and amusing piece of cinema that understands the joke and doesn't try to shy away from it.It's because the film has such a tongue-in-cheek nature that the inclusion of a love triangle irks me a little bit. Perhaps the tale of the two sisters vying for Granville's (Hugh Dancy) heart is a part of the true story, but it feels very forced, as if put in there to make it more cinematic. It takes away from the main story as a result, lessening it's appeal.The silver lining of the love triangle, though, is that it allows us to get some very good performances from Felicity Jones and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Jones and Dancy are good in their roles, there's no argument there, but Gyllenhaal is the MVP of the film. Doing an incredibly realistic London accent, she steals the show as the rebellious and impulsive Charlotte Dalrymple, more interested in womens' rights than the honour and respect of her family. This is in contrast to sister Emily (Jones), who is the perfect English rose, but a tad boring. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out who Granville chooses in the end, but at least we get some good acting out of it.'Hysteria' pretty much stayed under the radar on it's release, and it's easy to see why. It doesn't break any major boundaries, and doesn't boast any fantastic performances or memorable moments. It's just a very sweet, albeit slightly cheeky, film that could be better and could be worse. A film you could watch on a quiet night in, if you get bored of the dildo.

Yes I give this movie an 8!!!My spoiler would be I didn't watch the whole movie, I turned it on at the part where the Doctor was showing his "treatment" on a woman and had that red curtain tray thing over her pelvic area!! I had to keep watching! I had no idea what this movie was about, but when I actually watched it I liked it. It is not the norm of what I would choose for a movie. WHen it was over, I immediately called my girlfriend and said that I found the perfect girls night in movie over wine and snacks!!!!! I gave it a high rating because for what the movie was based on the actors were awesome, and everyone was so poised, but of course we all "know" !!Great Flick, great acting!!

Hysteria is a great idea for a movie. I mean, a movie about the invention of the vibrator? Thank you! I wanted to know how that came about (not sarcasm) but the execution was a bit wanting. The actors selected were great, each with capable acting abilities and each with commendable works in the past, but here together they had no chemistry, at least romantic chemistry. The whole time I felt that they were playing brother and sister.Maggie Gyllenhal's character was a wild and untamed woman with a brain (for the time) and Hugh Dancy's character was the somewhat uptight doctor who believed in modern medicine. The script wasn't all there, it felt unexplained at some points and overly used in other areas. (as in an over use of speech between characters who seem as if they cannot convey thought with eyes or facial expressions alone.) But strangely you want to know these characters, you root for what they want for the world and you believe that in what they say and in their beliefs. The movie is not exciting but it is new and smart in some ways. You really see the funny and silly sides of medicine. The movie isn't as good as it could have been, but it doesn't quite fall flat either. It's worth a watch so don't write it off.