Hysteria

11 March 2019

Hysteria 2011

• Directors: Tanya Wexler
• Based on the story by Howard Gensler
• Cast: Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Rupert Evert, Ashley Jensen, Sheridan Smith, Gemma Jones, Anna Chancellor
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Hugh Dancy – Jane Austen Book Club, Ella Enchanted, Daniel Deronda
• Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Dark Knight, Stranger than Fiction, Paris je t’aime, Sherrybaby, Mona Lisa’s Smile, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaption, Riding in Cars with Boys, Donny Darko, Waterland
• Jonathan Pryce – White King, Wolf Hall, Woman in Gold, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Brothers Grimm, Very Annie Mary, Tomorrow Never Knows, Evita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Brazil, Timon of Athens and on stage (the Globe in London)The Merchant of Venice
• Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything, The Invisible Woman, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, Like Crazy, The Tempest, Brideshead Revisited, Doctor Who
• Rupert Evert – St Trinian’s 2, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Stardust, To Kill a King, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Shakespeare in Love, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Madness of King George, Dance with a Stranger
• Ashley Jensen – The Escape Artist (but it was too scary to watch the whole series), Extras, Topsy-Turvy, Takin’ Over the Asylum
• Gemma Jones – Harry Potter, Unforgotten, Last Tango in Halifax, Merlin, The Merchant of Venice, The Devils
• Anna Chancellor – Testament of Youth, Hustle, Breaking and Entering, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Cold Lazarus, Karaoke
• Why? Good cast
• Seen:  5 March 2019      

       London, 1880. Young modern Doctor Grenville (Dancy) is fired for insisting that bandages should be clean and instruments sterilised. Not for the first time. He is finally hired by Doctor Dalrymple (Pryce) to help deal with the epidemic amongst well-to-do women – hysteria. The good doctor scientifically, clinically, impersonally brings his patients to orgasm with his hand and Doctor Grenville is taught to do the same.

       Doctor Darymple has two daughters, demure, sweet phrenologist Emily (Felicity Jones) and feminist socialist settlement house manager Charlotte (Gyllenhaal).

       Based on a true story. So the film makers assure us. Really.

       Maybe I’m an old curmudgeon but these are quite serious subjects, the stifling deadening physical and mental imprisonment of bourgeois women and the dire poverty of the working class, and I’d like to see a serious film. Unfortunately, this one is mostly frivolous, even jaunty.

       It is an enjoyable cast, though, and there are some serious moments. For a romantic comedy, which is essentially what it is, it’s not bad.

      

2 ½ * of 5