Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

valadas This movie is about the true (so they say) story of the invention in 1880 of an instrument to satisfy women's sexual needs that they couldn't satisfy otherwise. But in fact at those Victorian times this wasn't the declared purpose of it. It was supposed to treat clinically a psychic trouble called hysteria without mentioning any kind of pleasure that could result from such treatment. That instrument nowadays is called a vibrator. It portrays the task of an old gynecologist and his assistant, a young doctor trying to get himself a career through some scenes and sequences that make it a light comedy. Curiously and despite the fact that this theme is somewhat delicate, the movie keeps a great decency (almost puritanism) in the dialogues and scenes everything going on in a medical atmosphere except for a few minor scenes with minor characters. It doesn't show the least part of a woman's body even during the therapies. Notwithstanding that, the movie keeps a reasonable amount of humour (not particularly related to sex) that maintains the viewer rather amused almost all the time. The performers do a good job. This movie is not a masterpiece (the theme doesn't allow that) but it's amusing and somewhat related to reality though in a relatively superficial form.

mike-seaman Hysteria is a fun film, creatively retelling the invention of personal vibrators for women (with plenty of historical liberties). The movie is filled with somewhat cleverly played word games and endless innuendos. Tanya Wexler's film does aim to present anything in a true-to-life manner. The director does take aim at some of the issues facing the development of medicine and women's rights, but plays much off it for laughs or rather simple dramatic tension. Wexler's story telling is light and fun, though it also seems rushed, spending little time on developing characters, motives, or even the plot. One disappointment was Rupert Everett who feels as if he slept walked through his performance. The best trait of the film is that it is selfaware, never attempting to sell itself as anything more than what it is, playing gleefully along with its audience. In the end, Hysteria was an enjoyable movie for an evening looking for a lighthearted affair.

MLDinTN in late 1800s London is the center of this movie. It basically is a film about the invention of the vibrator. I don't know how much of it is true, but it was comical when all these old ladies go in for treatment for their hysteria. The story is about Dr. Granville whom joins the practice of Dr. Dalrymple in the treatment of hysteria. It seems half the female population is affected with it. So Granville sits in a session where we see the Dalrymple put a curtain over a woman's lower regions, oil up his hands, and stimulate. And to amazement, the women are very pleased with this. So Granville makes money, gets to help people and is intrigued by both Dalrmple's daughters, especially the independent one, Charolette. Granville has so many patients, his hand starts to hurt and he teams up with a doctor friend and they come up with a machine to stimulate. It starts out as a feather duster, then becomes more refined.FINAL VERDICT: This was in interesting film and was funny sometimes. Worth checking out.

sddavis63 Any movie that manages to offer you some knowledge of a little known piece of medical history, to give you a lot of laughs from beginning to end and that manages to mix in some social commentary along the way has to be a winner. The fact that "Hysteria" manages to do all that is first of all a great credit to Stephen and Jonah Lisa Dyer and Howard Gensler, who were all involved in the crafting of the story. It's wonderfully told. It' also wonderfully performed by pretty much the entire cast, mainly Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jonathon Pryce, with some strong supporting performances thrown in, and director Tanya Wexler moves the story along smartly and crisply. There's really no "filler" but this also doesn't feel rushed. It's perfectly paced. So, technically, this is a marvellous movie.It captures attention from its rather unusual subject matter - the invention of the vibrator. It causes, I suppose, a bit of a blush at times - particularly as you watch a variety of women, feet in stirrups, reacting to the "treatment" they're receiving, first manually from their doctors, and then using this magical new device. Let's be honest. Who knew that the vibrator was actually used very legitimately to offer a new form of treatment to women diagnosed with a condition that was recognized until the 1950's - hysteria. As one watches the "treatments" (all shown with a maximum amount of discretion and modesty, of course) one is tempted to think of these doctors as just dirty old men getting their kicks, but the movie makes clear that they really weren't. They believed in this condition and in this treatment, which relieved the symptoms of hysteria by bringing on a "paroxysm" - medical jargon for an orgasm, which had to be called a paroxysm because - well - women just didn't have orgasms, did they? It's actually quite fascinating to see the portrayal of medicine at the time (the movie is set in London in the 1880's) and we see not only hysteria and its treatment but debates about germs and the causes of infections. And it is quite funny, in a sexually suggestive (but not really sexual) way.What I really liked about this, though, was that in the midst of the fun about the invention of the vibrator, there was an interesting social commentary going on, revolving largely around the role of women, the debate over female suffrage, the treatment of the poor at the time. That was all woven quite seamlessly into the story.Now, having said all that, let's note that the history of the development of the vibrator isn't correctly portrayed. Dr. Granville (Dancy) didn't actually invent the machine for the purpose of treating hysteria in women, but rather for treating muscular disorders in men, and it was other doctors who discovered it a useful aid in the treatment of hysteria. I also haven't found any reference to the romance portrayed between Granville and Charlotte (Gyllenhaal) - whose character serves primarily to bring a feminist perspective to the story. (Granville's wife's name was Mary Ellen Ormerod.)Historical inaccuracies aside, though, the movie is still a lot of fun to watch, and does offer a fair representation of some of the attitudes toward women and the poor that existed at the time. (8/10)