There's a beautiful comedy moment in Hysteria when an elderly patient of Dr Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) reaches orgasm. She's being treated for the common, 19th century catch-all condition of 'hysteria', generally resolved with pelvic massage (read masturbation) by accommodating practitioners. Knowing a good thing when she feels it, and with more than a hint of improper and desperate desire, she tries to bring her next appointment forward, ideally to the next day. The good doctor declines, as much as anything because this lucrative practice has women lining up out the door waiting for treatment. He takes on an assistant in Dr Granville (Dancy) who, before you can say clitoral stimulation, develops a severe case of RSI.

Hysteria is a delightful period romp that counters the relative lightness of its subject with a juicy dollop of social morality – to his ongoing distress, Dalrymple's vibrant and outspoken daughter (Gyllenhaal) is a suffragette who also runs a home for poor, abused women. She is worthy, he less so (although the growing pile of cash could be useful). Understandably, she takes umbrage at her father's career, the rich, society women who seek out his treatment and then dashing Granville for turning his back on 'proper' medicine.

Despite the moral tone, director Tanya Wexler ensures matters never take too dark a turn, favouring brisk comedy to make her points. Strengthening this lightness of being is Granville's financial guardian Edmund St. John-Smythe (a pitch perfect Rupert Everett), an electrical enthusiast and part time inventor. A perfect meeting of need and design follows from which is born a gadget that aids Granville's own medical condition while changing the course of sexual expression forever. After trials on a willing hooker, the world's first vibrator is introduced and not surprisingly, it's a hit.

There's an infectious sense of fun and warmth about Hysteria that produces as many knowing smiles as it does belly laughs. Equally the cast appear to be having just as much, none more so than Everett who, on asking a caller what he's wearing, quickly discovers another use for his new fangled telephone device. Priceless. The film avoids cheap eroticism, and while the overarching joke is a slender one, it's delivered with such skill none of that matters. What's more, Hysteria is based on a true story. It really is.

// COLIN FRASER
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