Sony Pick The Rights For a Rom-Com About Vibrators!

(Written for BritScene)

It has recently been confirmed that Sony Pictures Classics are in final negotiations of getting the US distribution rights to Hysteria, a British rom-com about the invention of women’s sex toys as an advance in medical science.

Set in London in the Victorian era, the film is based on the true story of how Mortimer Granville came up with the world’s first electro-mechanical vibrator. Two doctors who are treating cases of hysteria in women experiment with this new device as a form of treatment.

This one’s sure to provoke a reaction, though maybe not quite the same one as the ladies in this film will be giving. It certainly created a “buzz” when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this year.

Directed by Tanya Wexler (Finding North), Hysteria stars Hugh Dancy (TV’s The Big C), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight), Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean), Rupert Everett (Wild Target), and Felicity Jones (Chalet Girl).

Samuel Goldwyn Films and Millennium also chased the title, but if Sony Classics close the deal, it would be their first TIFF title. What a choice for their first acquirement.