I saw Hysteria at the Toronto Film Festival last year and while the story at the center of the film is quite interesting the film itself is rather routine. Here’s the opening paragraph from my September 2011 review:
Did you know the vibrator was the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle and toaster? It also was invented about a decade before the vacuum cleaner and electric iron. Interesting right? And while Tanya Wexler‘s Hysteria isn’t half as inventive as the story at its core it is still a sweet enough diversion to make for an appealing night at home with a movie. As it turns out, instead of being about the invention at its core, the first electronic vibrator, and the result of its stimulation, serves as more of a metaphor for a story of sexual repression and woman’s liberation.
The film stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones and Rupert Everett and as I mention in the above paragraph, the vibrator becomes more of a metaphor rather than the actual focus of the story. Everett’s mad scientist performance as Edmund St. John-Smythe is certainly the show stealer, but I wouldn’t recommend this film outside of anything more than an at-home rental.
That said, Sony Pictures Classics is bringing it to theaters on May 18, so you can give it a peek there if you like.
