Director Tanya Wexler plays things broadly at times, but "Hysteria" has good fun with history while coming off far more wholesome than salacious.
Hysteria
A comedy about the birth of the vibrator in Victorian England.
2011 · 1h 40m · R
Comedy, Romance
Directed by
Tanya Wexler
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Hysteria
Overview
Two doctors in Victorian England use manual stimulation of female genitalia to cure their patients' ills, leading to the invention of the vibrator.
Director and cast
- Tanya Wexler Director
- Maggie Gyllenhaal as Charlotte Dalrymple
- Hugh Dancy as Dr. Mortimer Granville
- Jonathan Pryce as Dr. Robert Dalrymple
- Felicity Jones as Emily Dalrymple
- Rupert Everett as as Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe
- Ashley Jensen as Fanny
- Sheridan Smith as Molly the Lolly
- Gemma Jones as Lady St. John-Smythe
- Tobias Menzies as Mr. Squyers
- Malcolm Rennie Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Its 95 minutes move along nicely, and Everett - languid as a cat in a sunbeam - makes his too-brief scenes into master classes of comedy.
As a sex-education comedy, "Hysteria" is flaccid, forced and unfunny.
The problem with "Hysteria" is that it keeps patting itself and us on the back for knowing better.
Hysteria never gets too preachy or ponderous, and there's something in the film to educate even the most learned viewer.
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