Tanya Wexler’s third film, Hysteria, is about a blossoming romance set in Victorian England. So far, so rom-com. Except, the vibrator happens to be the main character. 

Mortimer Granville, an English doctor treating hysteria, invented this small but powerful instrument in 1880. That’s a true story. And Wexler set herself the challenge to tell its invention through the lens of comedy, romance and a British period drama. 

Never one to take things too seriously, Wexler maintains that sex is fun and so are vibrators. But there’s a serious core to her film and that’s hysteria. The condition has its roots in disturbed men and women in the nineteenth century, who were treated by doctors with only a basic understanding of mental health. Hysteria quickly become a catch-all diagnosis, covering unaccountable aches, pains, depression and, by the 1880s, sexual dysfunction in women. Here’s where the vibrator comes in.

Employing some poetic licence, Wexler portrays Granville as a doctor treating hysteria. He noticed how muscle paroxysm in women—an orgasm, in today’s language—could relieve their feelings of malaise. So he invented an electrical device that elicited one every time.

You must have learnt a lot about vibrators making Hysteria. Could you talk about them a little? What kind of research do you want? Do you want recommendations?

Well! They have changed in appearance over the years. Your film credits at the end show vibrators from 1880 to 2012. The early ones look like hair-dryers and you end with a rubber duck. What does that say about how women’s sexuality has been marketed? In the beginning, vibrators were very medical; they were modelled on women’s hands. The duck is the funniest one. 

Some of the other vibrators look like dildos. Thank you for understanding the difference. Still to this day I find the largest part of the education I have to do is that vibrators and dildos are not the same thing, although there is an overlap. With vibrators, there’s been a pendulum swing from a completely medical, non-sexual understanding, to a highly sexualised one. But I think the duck is a fascinating thing. It’s easy to judge it, but sex is fun. It’s the adult form of play, so let’s not make it overly serious.

Where did the idea behind Hysteria come from? It was brought to me as a two-page treatment. I heard romantic comedy, invention of a vibrator, Victorian England and thought, “I have to make that!” I had done two tiny indie films and had four not-so-tiny children, so I was on a bit of a mom break. The idea alone was something I was willing to miss dinner with my children for, all on a promise of nothing. It’s not like missing dinner because you’re shooting; you know it might never get made. 

One of the older women patients diagnosed with hysteria says, “I’m too old to have feelings.” That’s an interesting quote. The way Granville helps her is giving her access to a vibrator! But I value your showing women, young and old, as sexualised and desirous. There’s not a lot of nudity in the film, but sex is had by women of all ages. Hysteria is about is women. And women are women at twenty through seventy. I wanted all ages represented. At the same time, I wasn’t interested in a battle of the sexes film: women against men. I think the alternative title could be The Education of Mortimer Granville. I was really interested in—sorry the puns are too many—what makes us come together! So it’s not a film that’s just for women and it doesn’t vilify guys.

What’s your opinion of the rom-com genre? It tends to get a bad press for presenting women in an unchallenging way. I’m a lover, I’m a real heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl and, having made a couple of films, I’m probably more forgiving because I know how hard it is. But there haven’t been enough entertaining films that speak to women. There’s the kind of fluff I call wedding dress movies. Some are wonderful but there are a lot made. There are also broccoli movies: very serious, worthy films. The idea of a film that’s a bit fun—a girl’s night out—that has characters I can identify with, there aren’t many of them. I was a mom, I had four small children, I was tired, so I didn’t want to waste my time on something that didn’t mean anything, yet I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with something that was going to be hard work.

What’s been the reaction from audiences? I’ve had a real diversion. People either go, “I love it, finally something for me.” The other side is, “It’s not edgy enough, not hard enough.” But much more subversive in my opinion is to make a romantic comedy about a vibrator that you can bring your mum to than one that makes you go, “Ew.” That you can see every day on the internet—it is available! But I think comedy, and romantic comedy when it’s at its best, allows us to deal with our laughter and with our uncomfortableness in a safe space and then think about those things, enjoy those things, laugh at ourselves. 

Really the joke of the movie is not, “Ha ha, vibrator,” it’s denial! It’s like, I can’t believe that these people don’t see what’s right in front of their faces. My favourite scene is where Charlotte says, “You have made an invention that does harm to no one and makes everyone who comes in contact with it feel better.” To me, that’s what the movie is really about. That’s why I love it, because it says, “Let the serious things be serious, let the fun things be fun,” and, “Let’s not confuse the two.” That’s why I put the duck vibrator in, because it was funny. It really allows us to laugh.

Hysteria is out now.