History Film / Hysteria2011

A romantic comedy about oppression and hypocrisy in 19th century England, starring Creator/HughDancy, Creator/MaggieGyllenhaal, Creator/FelicityJones, and Creator/JonathanPryce.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: The film describes the invention of a vibrator. At the end of the movie, Emily is shown seizing one of those and seeking a private place.

* NoMereWindmill: The following "windmills" are in fact real threats or real inventions. [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready Neither claim is ever proven within the actual movie, the narrative counts on the audience possessing basic education.]]

* WeekendInventor: Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe, son of Mortimer Granville's noble benefactors and his sometime roommate, is highly interested in electrical devices and spends much of his time puttering around with them as a hobby. What he intended to be an electric feather duster winds-up saving Mortimer's career [[spoiler: and makes him independently wealthy to boot]].

* SpiritedYoungLady: Charlotte Dalrymple, UpToEleven, and she actually crosses a line to an early feminist. She is very rebellious, fights (at times rather aggressively) for a better society, tries to improve the sad situation of the poor, helps prostitutes (and does not blame them for what the society forces them to do, neither is she condescendingly compassionate to them) and is unapologetic about her progressive opinions. Her appearance is very feminine though, and at the ball she enchants almost everybody with her beauty and charm. Some narrow-minded and illiberal people do not consider her a lady, but the more sympathetic characters do. Her Proper-Lady-like sister Emily admires her very much.

** Furthermore, the entire concept of Victorians masturbating woman to cure hysteria is not actually described in any contemporary records, the only source we have of this is from Rachel Maine's book *The Technology of Orgasm.* Independent reviewers later went to find her supposed sources and noted that none of them actually supported her claims.

Oh, and the whole thing is [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie supposedly based on a true story]] [[note]]The idea of Victorian psychiatrists masturbating women was entirely invented by Rachel Maines in her 1998 book ''The Technology of the Orgasm''. Later peer review of the book has found that most of her sources were either fabricated or purposefully misconstrued, and that the entire book was one step shy of full-blown academic fraud.[[/note]]. It's also about the invention of a medical tool that is still very popular, although all claims about its medical usefulness have long since been debunked: the vibrator.

Oh, and the whole thing is [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie supposedly based on a true story]]. It's also about the invention of a medical tool that is still very popular, although all claims about its medical usefulness have long since been debunked: the vibrator.

%% * SocietyMarchesOn

Oh, and the whole thing is [BasedOnAGreatBigLie supposedly based on a true story]. It's also about the invention of a medical tool that is still very popular, although all claims about its medical usefulness have long since been debunked: the vibrator.

Oh, and the whole thing is kinda based on a true story. Kinda. It's also about the invention of a medical tool that is still very popular, although all claims about its medical usefulness have long since been debunked: the vibrator.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Dr Mortimer Granville existed in the late 19th century, and invented a vibrating electrical device based on an existing invention, initially for the purpose of orthopaedic self-treatment (this is given a nod in the film, where he applies the vibrator to his aching hands). He called it the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Hammer]]. While Dr Granville did have an interest in hysteria, he did not apply his invention towards treating it; he used it to treat those other well-known conditions, namely muscle disorders, in others. Granville didn't invent the vibrator, as such; he invented the '''electric massager'''. The rest is fiction.

* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: One of the poor hysteria sufferers at the beginning seems to get no pleasure at all from sex with her husband, going so far as to imagine "splitting his fat, bald head with a great large axe" when he [[MaritalRapeLicense comes to her at night.]] Dr. Dalrymple is actually a bit more progressive on this point than some of his contemporaries, granting that female sexual pleasure is possible, but ''only'' with the penetration of the male organ (in spite of all evidence to the contrary).

** Germs ''do'' exist. The general public doesn´t believe in the germ theory and neither do several important, high-class doctors.

* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: An opening title asserts that the movie is ''based on true events'' and then continues... ''Really''

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Fortunately for [[spoiler: Charlotte Dalrymple]], VictorianLondon doesn't lack good judges. [[spoiler: Finding the Crown's case for hysteria wanting, he remarks that if they were to "lock-up every female in whom whimsy and logic collide" they would have to imprison most of the women in England (his wife included). Charlotte is still punished for striking a policeman in the performance of his duties, but she is remanded into ordinary criminal custody instead of being committed to an asylum where she would have lost her uterus.]]

** Dr. Dalrymple rightfully observes that many women in VictorianLondon suffer greatly, and his treatment ''does'' offer relief, but hysteria is not to blame.
** We come to see Emily Dalrymple's Phrenological assessment of Dr. Granville's characteristics (wise, sympathetic, and fated to be famous) are completely accurate, if only by accident.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: Dr. Dalrymple rightfully observes that many women in VictorianLondon suffer greatly, and his treatment ''does'' offer relief, but hysteria is not to blame.
** We also come to see Emily Dalrymple's Phrenological assessment of Dr. Granville's characteristics (wise, sympathetic, and fated to be famous) are completely accurate, if only by accident.

* ArrangedMarriage: With zero chemistry and zero potential for happiness. The woman knows this from square one, but goes along with it anyway because her father told her to.

* WindmillPolitical: The concept of "hysteria". Treated as a dangerous condition that harms almost every woman, but modern medical science does not recognise it as a valid diagnosis. There are more modern concepts in psychiatry and psychology that would cover the obsolete umbrella term.

A romantic comedy about oppression and hypocrisy in 19th century England.

It starts with our male protagonist Mortimer Granville working as a doctor at a hospital. He gets fired for believing in silly new fads such as germ theory, the idea that doctors should wash their hands before surgery, that soiled bandages should be replaced and the idea that diseases and infections are caused by tiny invisible monsters that are not spiritual in nature.

As he finds a new job at a clinic for hysterical women, he quickly run into a woman who is just as crazy as he is: she actually believes in equal rights, or at least rights at all, regardless of class and gender, [[HilarityEnsues stirring up all kinds of trouble with outlandish demands such as the ideas that women ought to be allowed to vote and that even poor people should get education and healthcare]].

* BornInTheWrongCentury: From her socialist political views to her formal attire (specifically an absolutely ''scandalous'' shoulder-baring strapless gown worn more than forty years before it was supposedly invented), Charlotte Dalrymple gives the impression of a radical 20th or 21st century feminist born too early.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Fortunately for [[spoiler: Charlotte Dalrymple]], VictorianLondon doesn't lack good judges. [[spoiler: Charlotte almost lost her uterus (a radical cure for hysteria), but the judge deemed as too cruel and unhelpful.]]