In good hands

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Movie
German title In good hands
Original title Hysteria
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Tanya Wexler
script Stephen Dyer
production Tracey Becker
music Christian Henson
guest Waltzing
camera Sean Bobbitt
cut Billy A. Campbell
Jon Gregory
occupation

In good hands (original title: Hysteria ) is a romantic feature film by director Tanya Wexler from 2011. It is based on true events.

action

In Victorian England in 1880, a mysterious disease spreads among the women of society and threatens to reach epidemic proportions. The mysterious hysteria manifests itself in nervous conditions, irritability and sometimes also in unusually strong moist secretion in the vulva . One of the gynecologists who have dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the treatment of this disease is Robert Dalrymple, who is looking for a talented assistant doctor for his flourishing practice and finds him in the young Mortimer Granville .

Granville proves to be very skilled and dexterous. Under his good and quickly trained hands, the patients find relief from their suffering in so-called "hysterical paroxysm " in rows . This seizure -like phenomenon, known today as the female orgasm , is brought about by the attending physician by skillfully manipulating the clitoris , G-spot and similar sensitive areas. For the understanding of men in Victorian England, however, such a thing had nothing to do with sex , since sex, as they understood it, only takes place in connection with penetration .

There would be no limits to the expansion of the practice if Granville did not quickly reach its physical limits, since the induction of the paroxysm is strenuous and protracted and demands the last of the therapist's strength and endurance. With this problem, Granville comes to the aid of his friend Edmund, inventor and designer, with whose help a device for the mechanical treatment of hysteria was developed after several attempts and failures. This device is then the forerunner of the modern vibrator .

At the same time, Mortimer Granville also developed feelings for Emily, the younger daughter of Dr. Dalrymple, who plays Chopin and is interested in phrenology . Finally, through Dalrymple's mediation, they both get engaged. The spark only really flies when Granville meets the older daughter Charlotte, a fresh and uninhibited women's rights activist with secret sympathy for socialism .

background

The background of the film is real in that Joseph Mortimer Granville actually invented and patented the electric vibrator in 1883. The device he called "Percuteur" should not, in his sense, serve to treat hysteria:

I have not yet percussed any female patients. [...] I have refrained from percussion treatment of female patients, and I will refrain from doing it in the future, simply because I neither want to be deceived by the unclear forms of hysterical states nor the characteristic manifestations of hypochondria, nor support the deception of others.

Granville was also around 50 years old when his machine was patented in 1883, while in the film he is played by the much younger Dancy.

The form of treatment for hysteria corresponds to the circumstances at the time.

reception

“The American director Tanya Wexler has knitted an entertaining comedy out of the surprising technical and historical fact, which savor the contrast between Victorian prudery and the unleashing of female passion through the blessings of electricity to the fullest. […] In good hands , despite all the entertainment, it does not stand out from the mediocrity of historical feel-good films, because the original theme is presented here in an all too conventional cinematic form. "

- Martin Schwickert in Die Zeit

“ In good hands , the mainstream press is considered a funny film that depicts the invention of the vibrator with a wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal in the lead role. But actually the film should make us think. Gyllenhaal said at the premiere in the US: "You see a multitude of women having orgasms - and in our society that is still much more shocking than the representation of sex." (Missy Magazine 04/11)

So it's about more than just a few laughs. It's about education. Gyllenhaal [...] regards it as exciting to break taboos with her acting work and to embody different characters with different sex lives. Tanya Wexler, director of Hysteria, says, "There are still a lot of women who don't know how to please themselves." Too many probably. Our history plays a role in this. "

- Katrin Rönicke in the Friday

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of release for In good hands . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2011 (PDF; test number: 130 733 K).
  2. ↑ I have never yet percussed a female patient […] I have avoided, and shall continue to avoid the treatment of women by percussion, simply because I do not wish to be hoodwinked, and help to mislead others, by the vagaries of the hysterical state or the characteristic phenomena of mimetic disease. Granville: Nerve-vibration and excitation as agents in the treatment of functional disorder and organic disease. London 1883, p. 57.
  3. ↑ Katja Iken: Invention of the vibrator: Bsssssssssssssssss . In: Spiegel Online . January 12, 2012 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 1, 2019]).
  4. ↑ How prudishness got vibrated - criticism by Martin Schwickert in Die Zeit from December 19, 2011
  5. ^ The hysteria machine - column by Katrin Rönicke in the magazine » der Freitag « from November 14, 2011, viewed on January 25, 2012