My Wonder Women

Grateful to have caught an early screening of this movie in NYC, in which the cast made a brief appearance at the movie theater. The first thing I want to say is that this is a movie I will watch more than once.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is a film about ideas. It explores polyamory ("the philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time") and touches on explorations of dominance/submission and role-play, along the lines of BDSM.

Having read Jill Lepore's excellent book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, I knew a great deal about this story before going into the theater. As Lepore writes, "Wonder Woman's debt is to the fictional feminist utopia and the struggle for women's rights. Her origins lie in William Moulton Marston's past, and in the lives of the women he loved; they created Wonder Woman, too." It's this dynamic that sets the stage for this story, and the preview trailer for this film made it look erotic too. But those expecting to see a film along the lines of Henry & June may be disappointed.

I enjoyed this movie, but wished the romantic elements were explored more fully, particularly between the two women. The editing seemed at times overly efficient, too much in a hurry, far more concerned with propelling the narrative forward than in creating a relaxed, intimate atmosphere where the characters could indulge in the situation and be in the moment. I wish there were more "real time" scenes of foreplay, actually. Not sex, foreplay - as in flirting. Because I couldn't see the bond these people shared, and this was a movie about how these people connected.

My favorite character, by far, was Olive Byrne as played by Bella Heathcote, who is vulnerable and beautiful in the film. A real Gwendoline, to use fetish parlance. Least favorite would be Marston's wife as played by Rebecca Hall, who's an accomplished actress but seemed too uptight - and, worse, too contemporary - in this role. It always amazes me that costume and set design for period pieces like this are thoroughly researched and accurately reproduced, while almost no research goes into reproducing language use and speech patterns of the day (1925 - 1947). Did people actually use the f-word as much as Rebecca Hall uses it in this film? I think not. It made her character more grating than she needed to be. This is a fault of the script, and the f-word was used as a crutch far too often.

Marston was played adequately by the rugged-looking Luke Evans, who bears no resemblance to the overweight, dreamy-eyed real-life William Moulton Marston, but this was a concession to female audience members I suppose.

In real life, it's unknown how Marston developed an interest in BDSM. In the film, it's through Marston's encounter with the mythical pioneer of fetish history, Charles Guyette (the "G-string King"), a real historical figure. What I know of Guyette I learned through reading Charles Guyette: Godfather of American Fetish Art by Richard Perez Seves. As suavely played by JJ Field, he serves as mentor to Marston. Again, this is a bit of shorthand. Guyette is not mentioned in Lepore's history, but the audience is quickly introduced to this fetish underworld, which serves as a strong influence in the creation of Wonder Woman. No mention of Guyette being French in the Seves's book; in fact, he was born and raised in Massachusetts, according to Seves, but the people making this film may not have known this at the time as this brief book is more recent.

Overall, I'll wrap up this review by saying that despite these flaws, this is a film worth viewing. Maybe my own high expectations for it were impossible to meet. I enjoyed many scenes, with my favorite relying on the lie detector machine used in the first half of the movie; I truly loved those scenes. Again, I loved Bella Heathcote as Olive Byrne in this. So, in spite of all my nitpicking, I still give this movie a strong 7 out of 10. The ideas explored in this film make it worth watching. Maybe there's a director's cut of this film out there with additional scenes between the actors. One can only hope. But I would still see this movie again, as is, and certainly plan to.

Short and Simple Review by WubsTheFadger

The film shows the story of how Wonder Woman became to be. It is a story that should seem mundane, but Angela Robinson makes it exciting and real. The story is full of extremely sexual dialogue, moments, and visuals. The film is a great character study and also has a good amount of humor spattered throughout.

The acting is the best part of the film. Rebecca Hall, Luke Evans, and Bella Heathcote all perform phenomenally. Rebecca Hall delivers probably the best performance of her career as a narcissistic woman who is also brilliant.

The pacing is mostly good. The runtime is also a little overlong.

Pros: Exciting and real story, great character study, some good humor, amazing acting by Rebecca Hall, good overall acting, and a good ending

Cons: Some slow pacing and an overlong runtime

Overall Rating:.7.3

OK I'm not going to say a whole lot but I'm short: I really like this one.

Even if, by design, it looks like an unexceptional biopic by each fricken frame, the characters and dialogue more than make up for it. The story is centered around William Moulton Marston who - and I'm not kidding here - is 1. The inventor of the lie detector, 2. a radical progressive feminist that thinks women are the superior race with proof in the form of his psychological research 3. One of which include bondage (seriously) 4. Manages to have 2 wives who loved and lived together and 5. Used all his fixations and progressive ideals to invent Wonder Woman.

I mean hell! You could tell me if this guy could turn water into wine and I would believe you. The film knows how bonkers this guy is, but presents him matter-of-factly rather than with scorn or praise. Much like my closest film comparison THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLINT, it's the type of eccentric, perverse mindset that doesn't allow you to like the man but understand and appreciate how he changed the world with his ideals.

However, the film is mostly concerned with the three-way (sorry) love story at the center. The wife gets all the most complexity as she struggles with her bisexuality, her suppressed opportunities based on her gender, and the everyday family lifestyle that rejects her. It gets deep as well as heartbreaking.

Olive turns out to be the partner of the two, and easily gets more of an arc. At first very shy and uncertain of her status in life, the film progresses her to the free-spirited bisexuality that the movie treats as a hopeful triumph. The best moment is when she dawns the Wonder Woman costume in order to perform S&M ( Just bare with me, guys) and it's presented as a sign of self-discovery rather than gratuitous sleaze. I'm not sure if people like her would connect to this, but I would say it's a lot more hopeful and cathartic than anything BATTLE OF THE SEXES could ever wish to offer.

Angela Robinson directs this with the type of directing chops you expect from a run-of-the-mill miniseries rather than a movie. But much like Patty Jenkins work with WONDER WOMAN, her limited chops is unmatched by the utter love and conviction to the subject matter. It's the type of film where the imperfections make the film more real and self-confident.

Professor Marston & The Wonder Women is a damn good time and the rare biopic you rarely see anymore. Classy, funny, sexy, delightful, brilliantly acted, and overall passionate, you have to see this!

After watching the movie my reaction was very positive. I liked the leads, liked the story and the production design was also very good. I only thought that their relationship was a bit too perfect and simple as I think in reality these kind of relationships are much more complex and nuanced which I think is really hard to translate to the screen. And then I started reading about their lives. And then I realized that almost everything I liked in the movie is totally innaccurate or just plain false. And then I started not liking this movie and all the decisions taken. In the movie's defense I think this is a very hard story to tell as very little is known about the girls relationship, but giving it the Hollywood treatment is not the way to go for me. So we end up with a movie that I enjoyed watching but hated reading about it afterwards, like almost all biopics... Maybe I should just stop reading after these kind of movies? I wonder...

To all the people saying that this movie is inaccurate - DUH!! It's a feature film, NOT a documentary!! Do you know what a feature film is? It means it has a script writer - someone who writes the story... who comes up with the lines... based on their own imagination. Of course 90% of the stuff in that movie didn't happen. None of us were there at that time!! They have to make that stuff up. Otherwise, how else are they supposed to make an interesting movie?? If they don't come up with an interesting story you'll complain about how boring it was. If they come up with something interesting that's even slightly fictional the history police goes nuts with their crazy "the movie is inaccurate!!!" comments. Give it a break for once, will ya??

The movie was incredible. It was so tastefully done. The acting is superb. The cinematography is breathtaking. The pacing is spot on and moves the story along so well. Not a single dull moment in this movie. I was captivated from the first second to the last. I could watch movies like this non stop. It's brilliant. Yes, I understand it's not what actually happened. I don't care. For an hour and a half I lived in a beautiful fantasy world and watched an amazing story unfold in the most magnificent way possible. And if that isn't the real reason why people make and watch movies then you need to wake up and get real. This one is a MUST SEE!