'Hysteria' review: A sex-toy comedy marred by silliness

For a film that shows the folly of failing to take the female orgasm seriously, "Hysteria" ends up taking a silly angle on a potentially fascinating slice of secret history.

It's not exactly breaking news that the Victorian Era fostered some iffy notions on the topic of female sexuality (mostly that it didn't exist), but it's kind of amazing how barmy some of the accepted theories were. Women were commonly treated for emotional issues by a physician who would, um, digitally stimulate them to the point of "hysterical paroxysm," all the while maintaining that none of this had anything to do with sex.

Director Tanya Wexler's film centers on the real-life figure of Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), the inventor of the first electric-powered vibrator, which gave women the power to induce their own hysterical paroxysms whenever they wanted. He does so while working for a well-known London doctor (Jonathan Pryce) and wooing his boss's daughter, a feminist/socialist/community organizer played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. He gets the idea for the gizmo from his aristocratic, tinkering pal (Rupert Everett, the most entertaining part of the movie). In the process, he throws off the shackles of convention and embraces an unconventional lifestyle.

"Hysteria" opens with a statement something like "This film is based on true events. Really." That "really" implies that even the stuff that seems hard to believe actually happened. The problem is that the movie diverges significantly from history in several particulars. Most notably, the real Granville meant for his device to be used as a muscle massager, and opposed its use on women. There's also no indication that Gyllenhaal's, Pryce's or Everett's characters really existed. There's nothing wrong with taking a germ of historical fact and spinning a story from it, but don't then claim that it "really" happened.

Even this would be negligible if the movie had more sharply crafted moments and fewer tittering scenes of various uptight women experiencing their moments of induced ecstasy. Or if Gyllenhaal's character didn't seem to be a time traveler (there were plenty of progressive women, and men, at the time, but probably none quite so incongruous). Then again, even an imperfect sex-toy comedy is necessary as long as we live in a world where one state (Alabama) still technically prohibits their sale. Now that's hysterical.

(100 min., rated R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-

-- Marc Mohan