Hysteria

An Informant Media and Forthcoming Films production in colaboration with Beach Films and Chimera Films. (Worldwide sales: Elle Driver, Paris.) Created by Sarah Curtis, Judy Cairo, Tracey Becker. Executive producers, Michael A. Simpsons, Eric Brenner, Ken Atchity, Sandra Siegel, Leo Frederick, Nathalie Frederick, Mark Kress, Hakan Kousetta, Claudia Blumhuber, Florian Dargel, Peter Fudakowski, Stephen Dyer. Directed by Tanya Wexler. Script, Stephen Dyer, Jonah Lisa Dyer.With: Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Johnson, Rupert Everett, Ashley Jensen, Sheridan Cruz, Gemma Johnson, Anna Chancellor, Malcolm Rennie, Kim Criswell, Georgie Glen, Elisabet Johannesdottir.Tanya Wexler's "Hysteria" feels similar to an amount result if a person required the conceptual gist of Sara Ruhl's sublimely witty play "Within the next Room," place it through committee-driven script development, and targeted for that type of boisterous costume crowdpleaser that congratulates its audience for taking pleasure in such refined entertainment even while it panders. This fictive comedy concerning the real-existence utilization of vibes to deal with Victorian ladies' "hysterical" disorders will attract enough positive notices in the usual suspects to aid advertisements recommending critical consensus. However the overcalculated pic could earn a fast ancillary exit just like easily as sleeper success. The winking tone is placed through the coy announcement "This story is dependant on true occasions. Really." Fledging physician Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is introduced being fired from his latest 1880s London publish at least again insisting on progressive medical ideas (like hospital hygiene) sometimes when leeches and bleeding continue to be recognized remedies. Eager for employment, he lands in the door of Dr. Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), who's carrying out a flourishing business among genteel ladies stricken with "hysteria" -- a blanket term for practically any female complaint, especially mental. Dalrymple's method includes getting them lay lower on the table, bare legs separated behind a discreet puppet-theater curtain, and by hand rubbing their privates release a "nervous tension." It's stressed this process is strictly therapeutic, not sexual, however these patients most likely have no clue how much of an orgasm is. They simply know they, enjoy their treatment. Mortimer proves a fast study (though he evolves hands cramps from a lot friggery), even being urged to woo his mentor's preferred daughter, Emily (Felicity Johnson), that has a thornier brother or sister, suffragette Charlotte now (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who irks Papa no finish by enhancing the lower classes in a charitable organisation settlement house. Ahead-of-her-time "feisty" having a vengeance, she's like Mary Poppins juggling copies of "Das Kapital" and "The Feminine Eunuch." Naturally, idealistic but convention-bound Mortimer will realize he really wants to be this spitfire's domestic partner instead of Emily's dully respectable husband. Although not before lots of foreseeable contrivances, together with a trial scene that enables the 2 results in speechify points the film has made glaringly apparent. The majority of the comedy originates from Mortimer and wealthy layabout friend Edmund's (Rupert Everett) semi-accidental invention from the vibrator -- which saves Mortimer's hands further stress and works formerly undreamt miracles for Dalrymple's clientele. In comparison using the subtle humor playwright Ruhl eked from erotic awakening under moralistically blindered conditions, "Hysteria" offers broad laffs via stereotypes and slapstick. Dancy handles a couple of sly moments, and Everett is really as ever a scene-stealer, if barely identifiable within beard and changed features, with a raspy voice. However the estimable Pryce and Johnson are wasted, together with a number of other fine thesps, while Gyllenhaal works too gratingly hard within an already strained role. Shot in England and Luxembourg, pic is handsome enough on design levels, professional in tech departments. Orchestral score is galumphingly frolicksome within an elephant-in-toeshoes way.Camera (color, widescreen), Sean Bobbit editor, Jon Gregory music, Gast Waltzing additional music, Christian Henson production designer, Sophie Becher supervisory art director, Bill Crutcher set decorator, Charlotte now W costume designer, Nic Ede seem (Dolby Digital), Martin Trevis assistant director, Laurence Rexter-Baker casting, Gaby Kester. Examined at Toronto Film Festival (Gala), Sept. 12, 2011. Running time: 99 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com