A friend tweeted us this trailer for Hysteria a while ago and we can’t wait to watch it! The movie — and it looks brilliantly acted — deals with the creation of the vibrator and stars Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Dancy plays Dr. Mortimer Glanville, a doctor who administers cures for female hysteria — considered to be an actual condition for women in Victorian England. The best cure for the was “manual massage” — if you catch our drift. This boggles our mind. You actually had doctors who had to “cure” you by giving you a happy ending? Legally! Only then it was called “hysterical paroxysm”.
Maggie stars as the woman who tells Dancy’s character about what women really want. Especially after the invented the “electrical feather duster” to do his job. Considering the subject matter of the film, and all that vibrator talk, Maggie must’ve felt particularly empowered. She also decided to pass the love along, telling the press at the Toronto Film Festival, “I gave everybody, cast and crew, a little bullet vibrator when we started. It was expensive!” But a kind deed is almost always returned by the universe. Maggie added, “By the time I finished the movie I’d been sent maybe 15 vibrators by different people in London with vibrator stores.”
Watch the trailer after the jump.
