Effective acting and Tanya Wexler's direction of a taboo topic (especially given the era in which it's set) cannot save the unbearably choppy and uneven writing of the movie.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 8, 2017

It's all rather sweet in its way, as it treads gingerly round and round its subject. Nicely acted too, especially by Gyllenhaal and Pryce.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 21, 2012

Maggie Gyllenhaal channels Emma Thompson on heat. No sale.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 20, 2012

Gyllenhaal rises above the tedium; sadly, not far enough. Great English accent, though.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 20, 2012

Hysteria is a history lesson customised as a costume comedy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2012

Tanya Wexler's staggeringly bad period comedy wears out its AA batteries fast, despite its teasing premise.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 20, 2012

Lightly humorous, well performed and not nearly as smutty as you might imagine. The earth may not move, but there are tingles of pleasure along the way.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 16, 2012

Everyone else seems a bit daunted by the subject matter.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 11, 2012

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 16, 2012

It's as foregone as the extras hitting their marks with over-rehearsed precision and the filmmakers milking laughs from their comfortable perch in the 21st century.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 15, 2012

Director Tanya Wexler plays things broadly at times, but "Hysteria" has good fun with history while coming off far more wholesome than salacious.

| Original Score: B | Jun 15, 2012

Its 95 minutes move along nicely, and Everett - languid as a cat in a sunbeam - makes his too-brief scenes into master classes of comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 14, 2012

As a sex-education comedy, "Hysteria" is flaccid, forced and unfunny.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 8, 2012

The problem with "Hysteria" is that it keeps patting itself and us on the back for knowing better.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2012

The movie also makes all the right noises about female sexual liberation. But its good intentions are undermined by sniggering jokes...

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 1, 2012

Good vibrations all around.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 31, 2012

Despite being loosely based on the invention of the vibrator, Hysteria isn't very risqu, though it's pleasurable enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 25, 2012

It's happy to get the big facts broadly right, as long as it's allowed to have a little fun with the rest.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 25, 2012

"Hysteria," with its period costumes and English accents, seems like a much better movie than it is.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 24, 2012

For a light entertainment, this romantic comedy delivers an impressive amount of feminist rhetoric and historical detail.

| May 24, 2012