Monday, May 28, 2012

The Hysteria Report

Just as I predicted, the movie Hysteria has turned out to be a full-on non-misogynist romance movie. In fact, this might just be the quintessence of the non-misogynist romance movie - Hugh Dancy is adorable as the doctor (Maggie Gyllenhall is adorable too, but not in quite the same way), the script is extremely well-plotted, lots of good roles for women, a great feminist message without being tiresome and doctrinaire, fascinating historical facts and details and really funny. I laughed aloud several times. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that for me the funniest part involved goggles. Go see the movie, you'll understand.

I confess I was a little worried. When I blogged about this last week I said that I thought it would be silly, and almost considered waiting for it to come out on iTunes, but I read this positive review by Roger Ebert and decided I had to see it sooner rather than later. And it wasn't silly at all, but clever and charming and thoughtful. And Hugh Dancy plays Victorian diffidence extremely well - you want to just jump on him, in his adorable vests and cravats and sideburns.

Yes, as you might expect about an experience that involves adorable men and "paroxysms" I came away extremely satisfied.