This summer’s movie season brought the English independent film “Hysteria” to theaters. Some Chattanoogans who saw the movie may have recognized a particular actress in the film as Hixson High graduate Kim Criswell.
Criswell played the role of Mrs. Castellari in the romantic comedy/drama. Set in the late 19th century, the film also starred such actors as Hugh Dancy, who plays a young, innovative doctor, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who acts as a sort of women’s rights activist.
The plot, at least partly historically accurate, centers around the flawed Victorian idea that women often suffered from a condition called “hysteria,” rendering them depressed and anxious, among other rather vague symptoms. The cure, according to a leading specialist in women’s medicine, involved a “manual massage.”
“It’s very funny, and women in particular are amused by the film,” Criswell said in a phone interview from her home base in London. “It’s a good anecdote for those people like myself who are a little bit tired of every other big blockbuster film.”
Criswell’s character is an Italian opera singer who visits the “women’s specialist” because she “cannot sing from the sadness.”