Hysteria Review

Director: Tanya Wexler

Cast: Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones

Running time: 100 minutes

Certificate: 15

Plot: Based on a true story (aren’t they all?), HYSTERIA portrays Mortimer Granville’s journey towards the invention of… the first women’s vibrator. Yep.

Re-read the plot summary above. If, like me, you’re expecting this to be a FIFTY SHADES-prequel, prepare to be mistaken. Director Tanya Wexler smartly keeps HYSTERIA’s tone light, and in doing so creates a charmingly enjoyable period comedy (rather than a seedy come-into-my-lair/dungeon/basement ‘thriller’).

The plot, in essence, is split three ways: the journey of Mortimer Granville in curing women of hysteria (which, as women cannot achieve pleasure through orgasm [or such is the belief of the age], is strictly a medical treatment), his romantic pursuits with various women, and the campaigning of the suffragettes (a hastily tacked on side plot to reinforce the rights of women and offset the depiction of them in the main story, but more on that later).

It’s due mainly to HYSTERIA’s charm that it succeeds to the extent that it does – with its characters hollow, its plot not completely accurate (albeit interesting enough) and its laughs not nearly as often or actually funny as they ought to be, on paper it doesn’t seem to be a winner. It’s the production values that benefit the film most; from the costumes and settings to historical details (and a glance at what it was really like to travel by horse and carriage, apparently).

A hit-and-miss cast doesn’t serve the film any better; Jonathan Pryce steals the show from Hugh Dancy’s lead as his mentor and father figure, with Dancy looking noticeably uncomfortable for most of the proceedings. Perhaps 100 minutes of masturbation jokes aren’t his thing; then again, that’s HYSTERIA’s only other notable achievement – that it in fact manages not to dwell on an hour and forty minutes of groan-inducing ‘comedy’. If you’re expecting a British version of AMERICAN PIE, think again.

Though British is undoubtedly what this is. It seeps through the production, the characters and locales as surely as its cast; with the exception, of course, of the only American lead – Maggie Gyllenhaal, disastrous accent and all. Not entirely unconvincing in her suffragette role, she at least manages to persuade us she believes in women’s rights and stuff. No, like really! But the film’s constant need to thrust (oops) this backup plot in our faces at every turn does more to hinder than help; propagating mostly historic class and sex differences that would fare far better in a less light-hearted jaunt.

Still, HYSTERIA is a fun, brisk romp that rides its strengths and belies its weaknesses to provide some decent, if hollow, entertainment. Credits-watchers will also be rewarded with a brief history of the vibrator throughout the ages. Fun for all the family, then – if not quite Disney’s answer to FIFTY SHADES OF GREY…

Hysteria is in cinemas now.