I hate to sound like one of those people, but we are undeniably spoiled by today's modern conveniences. Most everything that we could want, we have. (Although, come to think of it, fast food drive-thru speaker technology hasn't come very far, has it?) I often look around and wonder where many of the things we take for granted came from. Who was the first person to decide that those white rock which fell out of chickens would be good with bacon? Who looked at a tornado and thought, "That would clean the heck out of my carpet!" The makers of Hysteria clearly had some similar thoughts, as they took a look at the invention of something which everyone knows about, but no one wants to speak of.

The year is 1880 and Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is having a hard time holding down a job. This young man is a believer in "modern" medicine and his ideas on germ theory often has him butting heads with his superiors. He applies for a position with Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) and is hired. Dalrymple specializes in treating women who suffer from "hysteria", a sort of emotional imbalance which only effects females. Dalrymple treats this malady by massaging a patient's nether regions until they experience a "paroxysm", which helps to calm the nerves. Granville proves to be a natural at this and soon the practice is booming. Granville also finds himself attracted to Dalrymple's younger daughter, Emily (Felicity Jones), who studies phrenology. Conversely, Granville is vexed by Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Emily's older sister, who devotes her time to helping poor women. The success of the practice causes Granville to suffer severe cramping of the hand, so he turns to his mentor/friend Edmund St. John-Smythe (Rupert Everett), an inventor, for help. But, how can someone who is pioneering research in electrical devices help Granville?

To say that Hysteria is a weird movie would be an overstatement, as I typically try to reserve that term for things like the works of David Lynch. However, to say that it's unique would be quite appropriate. What we have with Hysteria is a Victorian sex romp which is never really about sex. Writers Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, along with Director Tanya Wexler, have somehow made a movie which is about the most scandalous of topics, but it never mentions them by name. The movie plays some of this material for tongue-in-cheek reasons, but it also based on the fact that the prim and proper people of this era approached the subject with a mixture of reserve which meant that they didn't mention certain things and ignorance in that that were so wrong about their approach anyway. So, strip away all of the charm and elegance from the movie and all that's left is the story of a doctor who gets paid to help frustrated women have orgasms and when this process became debilitating, he became involved in the invention of the world’s first electric sex toy.

Thus, we get a movie which is a mixture of awkward humor, drama, and moral lesson. One can’t help but laugh at how the movie tiptoes around certain topics while blindly barreling through others. Granville and Dalrymple talk about their patients and their procedure as if they are performing a great surgery. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Granville is very confused as to the importance of what he is doing, and this is magnified when he witnesses the actual charity which Charlotte is performing. While he is helping wealthy women to relax, she is helping women simply get food and shelter. The movie also drives home many points about the ignorance and social norms of that time period. Hysteria is one of those historical dramas which we watch and say “Did people really believe that?”, as we see how the women are treated and the very odd ideas about medicine and science.

The movie’s one flaw is that it does its job too well. Hysteria is all dressed up like any other costume drama, despite the cheeky material, and it manages this straight face throughout. This is fun at first, but at some point, we want the movie to pull up its skirt and actually party. As it never does this, the pacing seems stuffy and stiff at times, and unlike Granville’s patients, we never feel fulfilled. Still, the movie tells a fascinating story and takes us to a time and place that most of us didn’t know existed. Hysteria shows that we’ve come a long way, unless you live in Alabama.

Hysteria made me even more uncomfortable as Dr. Dalrymple’s little curtain looked like a puppet show stage on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 25 Mbps. The picture is very sharp and clear, showing no distracting grain and no defects from the source material. The movie was shot in a very natural style and the colors look very good. The image is never overly dark or bright. The level of detail is very good, and the depth is notable, as the characters are nicely separate from the backgrounds. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.8 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The audio here serves the movie well, but it won’t be a demo disc. The stereo and surround effects come to light in street scenes and during a party scene. They are most evident during a trial scene, where we can hear the comments from the audience behind the actors. Explosions in St. John-Smythe’s lab provide mild subwoofer effects.

The Hysteria Blu-ray Disc contains a handful of extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Tanya Wexler. "An Evening with Tanya Wexler, Hugh Dancy, and Jonathan Pryce" (12 minutes) was recorded April 23, 2012 at the Tribeca Film Festival, where we get to hear the trio field Q&A after a screening. "Hysteria: Behind the Scenes" (6 minutes) contains comments from the filmmakers who talk about the story and how the project came together. We also hear from the cast who describe their characters and comment on the odd nature of the script. The Disc contains four DELETED SCENES which run about 3 minutes. Obviously these are all brief, and one is simply an odd montage. We get 43-minutes of excerpts from the documentary Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm, which contains comments from experts and historians who researched the history of the vibrator. The final extra is a THEATRICAL TRAILER for the film.