Review: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
Though many will find fault with its elastic handling of facts, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is a nonetheless highly compelling look at how Wonder Woman, the most famous and enduring female superhero of all time, came into being. More significantly, it's an observation of a relationship that is still as unorthodox today as it was nearly a century ago.
When audiences are first introduced to William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans), he's already under fire for his creation, having been called to defend himself and his work before the Child Study Association of America in 1945. The committee, led by Connie Britton's Josette Frank, note that the comics are replete with scenes of bondage, spanking, torture, homosexuality, and other sex perversions that are wholly inappropriate and abnormal for its readers. Yet, "what is normal?" posits Marston as the film flashes back to 1928 as the professor addresses his students at Radcliffe as he introduces his DISC theory, explaining that all human relationships break down into the interplay between dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance.
He takes a shine to one of his students, Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), whom he enlists as an assistant to aid him and his wife, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall), in their research. Elizabeth, who never hesitates to remind her husband that she is the more brilliant mind of the two, recognises her husband's attraction to the pretty young blonde but does nothing to discourage it, professing she has no sexual jealousy and stating, "I'm your wife, not your jailer." Yet the neurotic and compulsive Elizabeth's condescending attitude towards Olive, whom she believes to be nothing more than beautiful, is altered when she learns that Olive is descended from two of the most famous radical feminists in the world, though Olive is quick to point out that her mother Ethel Byrne and aunt Margaret Sanger were too busy with the movement to have any sort of presence in her life.
The couple are undeniably drawn to Olive who, in turn, possesses feelings for both husband and wife. The trio's obvious closeness becomes the talk of the campus and scandalises Olive's fiancee, who insists she sever all personal ties with the couple. Yet Olive can't and, despite Elizabeth's own efforts to distance herself, it's evident that their emotions are too strong to deny and the three embark on a polyamorous relationship, which would soon come to embrace dress-up and bondage. Writer-director Angela Robinson does not shy away from the sexual nature of the trio's relationship - one of the most exquisitely erotic sequences feature the couple spying on Olive paddling a sorority sister during a hazing ritual; Marston noting how the sight turns on his wife and Olive, watching Elizabeth watch her, herself becomes aroused - but her gaze never veers into the salacious or exploitative.
For Marston, these two muses would combine to create the perfect woman, whom he would initially christen Suprema the Wonder Woman before Max Gaines (Oliver Platt), the publisher at National Periodical Publications (known today as DC Comics) would shorten it to Wonder Woman. Elizabeth and Olive were clear influences, whether it be in Diana Prince's intelligence or Wonder Woman's gold cuffs (inspired by the cuffs Olive wore), and Marston would inject elements from his own life in the comics. If reality refused to listen to his beliefs and denied he, Elizabeth, Olive, and their children the chance to live their lives as they wanted, then Wonder Woman was his opportunity to promote his personal agenda in a medium where, like S&M, "fantasy is possibility."
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women has its faults to be sure but, in many respects, those faults are ones that have plagued the character of Wonder Woman herself to this day - how can a scantily clad woman obviously a product of the male gaze be a feminist icon? How can a man and two women who lived with and loved one another and practiced domination and submission be heralded as forward-thinking, boundary-shaking people when one could argue that they are all merely taking liberalism to its most extreme degree? Though one can understand the back-and-forth narrative structure, the film works best when it dials down the heavy-handedness with which it delivers its message, especially since Evans, Hall and Heathcote all do excellent work in conveying how the extraordinary can be borne out of the ordinary.
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
Directed by: Angela Robinson
Written by: Angela Robinson
Starring: Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Connie Britton, Monica Giordano, JJ Feild, Oliver Platt
