If Art’s primary function is to provide comment on contemporary society and ensure the tradition of passing down historical knowledge via storytelling, then it seems necessary that the cinema engage in presenting major historical developments that lead to societal or institutional change via an entertaining narrative. Recent examples would include A Flash of Genius (Marc Abraham, 2008), The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010), and The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011).
Hysteria, directed by Tanya Wexler and starring Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Felicity Jones, and Rupert Everett, is a worthy addition. Dancy is Mortimer Granville, a young doctor fascinated by the scientific developments taking place in London in 1880. It’s a pity that he seems to be the only one. After losing many jobs due to his crackpot ideas about ‘germ theory,’ he accepts a job with Dr Robert Dalrymple (Pryce), an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of Hysteria, a malady experienced exclusively by women. When Dr Granville proves extremely good at, erm, ‘handling,’ his patients, Dr Dalrymple promises future ownership of the practice, and Dalrymple’s youngest daughter Emily (Jones). Meanwhile, his elder daughter Charlotte (Gyllenhaal) causes much disruption to Granville’s life and eventually his heart.
This film is an entertaining and extremely amusing interpretation of the invention of the vibrator in the treatment of women with ‘hysteria,’ an impairment thought to be brought on by an ‘overactive uterus.’ But gender politics rule this film: here, women are thought by men to be mentally unstable because of their very genitalia. Our protagonist, Granville, is forced (often literally) to examine women and their various qualities. When given the choice between the ‘ideal woman’ in the form of the genteel Emily and the ‘hysterical woman’ in the form of the volatile Charlotte, he comes to see that both of these representations of women in Victorian England are fictional. Both women are intelligent, strong and resourceful and never regard one another suspiciously in the competition for Granville’s affections. It’s relatively rare to find a film in which both women are equally suitable for the male suitor – yet the conventions of the romantic comedy means the audience will know who Granville will end up with quite early in the piece.
Both women, and the women who visit Dr Dalrymple, seem more than ready for a personal revolution that leads to a societal one. Granville’s invention essentially becomes the catalyst for this change to occur. Hysteria’s message is that when men put women’s pleasure first, great things can happen. Amen.
Hysteria is now screening at Tower Cinemas Newcastle.
