HYSTERIA (R) It may come as a surprise to learn that the medical establishment hasn't always understood women. Bizarre but true. Today, of course, women in most Western countries are completely able to make decisions about their own bodies (and reproductive organs) without having to worry about politics and….

Well, OK, maybe not. Things have largely progressed in some ways, though, as Hysteria reminds us. Set in Victorian-era London in the early 1880s, the ailment of hysteria is afflicting half of the women in the city, as Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) repeatedly points out. He should know: Dr. Dalrymple's entire practice is devoted to "curing" women of their anxiety and strange ailments by massaging it out of them by inducing orgasm. Enter Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), a perpetually out of work doctor who Dalrymple hires to help out with the patients. Mortimer becomes so popular with the female patients that his hand cramps up and he's forced to start using a weird yet miraculous new hand-held vibrating device that his friend Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe invented as a fan. Women love it even more. Meanwhile, Granville falls in love with Dalrymple's demure daughter Emily (Felicity Jones). Emily's fiercely independent older sister, Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), complicates matters with her socially progressive views, and Granville, despite his reservations, starts to take a romantic interest in her.

For a movie called Hysteria, about the ebb and flow mysteries of the female orgasm and the invention of the vibrator, it's all rather meekly put together. Director Tanya Wexler never seems to figure out what kind of story she wants to tell—is this a romantic comedy, a sex farce, a satire?—and the tonal shifts from Mel Brooks-like broad humor (the scenes of patients getting "treated") to the strained repartee between Dancy and Gyllenhaal are off-key. It's all amiable enough, and when the film keeps fleet-footed and whimsical, it works. But when Gyllenhaal, usually a nimble actress, bursts into every scene bent on chewing scenery in as few bites as possible, forced to spout leaden dialogue, it screeches to a halt. It appears that Wexler and her screenwriters are striving to make a romantic comedy in the tradition of Howard Hawks. There's no wit here, however, and Gyllenhaal and Dancy (who each have charisma on their own), lack chemistry. There are a few good laughs in Hysteria, but it's in desperate need of a little more finesse.