Hysterical

Quite some time back, I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal in an interview on The Daily Show, promoting her newest film Hysteria. It was a low budget British film, not likely to be in many theaters here in Denver (or at least, any comfortable enough to sit in for two hours), so I put the movie into the Netflix queue and patiently waited for it to make its way to DVD.

The film is a period piece, set in London at the end of the 19th century. The attention-grabbing way of telling you what it's about is this: it's the story of the invention of the vibrator. But what it's really about is a key period in the evolution of women's rights. The "hysteria" of the title, for those who don't know, was a catch-all medical diagnosis for women of the time, a supposed physical ailment to explain away unhappiness really brought about by inequity and societal limitations. And the film goes right to the heart of these issues without being overly preachy.

Hugh Dancy plays a thoroughly modern doctor whose desire to embrace the newest discoveries of medicine has put him into conflict with many other older physicians. He's bounced from job to job, until he winds up in the practice of a doctor played by Jonathan Pryce, a practice that has grown very successful thanks to its interesting... treatment for hysteria in women. Pryce's character has two daughters, the staid and obedient one played by Felicity Jones, and the fiery and spirited one played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film chronicles the Dancy character's growing relationship with the two women, as he works with his own best friend (played by Rupert Everett) to revolutionize the practice.

The script is wonderfully clever, and brought to life with skilled direction by Tanya Wexler. She knows how to capture the period without calling attention to it, and seems to hold no element above getting the best performances from her actors. Everyone in the film is superb. Jonathan Pryce is particularly funny as a character who doesn't ever realize he's being funny at all, while Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal make for truly compelling leads.

Hysteria is an especially wonderful use of period storytelling, as it contains many messages still absolutely topical today. Although women got the right to vote a century ago, and have been making grand strides toward equality with men ever since, women's sexuality can still be an oddly controversial topic even today. One look at the firestorms that surrounded people like Sandra Fluke and Todd Akin is enough to illustrate that many people today are sadly not any more evolved in their attitudes than the people depicted in the time period of this movie.

And it's also just a delightfully funny film too.

I grade Hysteria an A-. At this point, my "Top 10 of 2011" list is woefully out of date -- not that anyone would be paying attention to it at this point anyway. But if I were to update it, this movie would definitely be on it.