Professor Marston and the Wonder Women *** (2017, Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Oliver Platt) – Movie Review

The story of middle-aged married psychologist perverts and pioneers, Professor William and Elizabeth Marston, enjoying a three-way marriage with his student Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote) is an interesting one, though writer-director Angela Robinson makes it seem less interesting than it is. The three set up a household with children from both unions, living openly and indiscreetly, and paid a price for their openness and honesty.

The main point is that the Marstons got sacked from Harvard university for their relationship, Elizabeth took up life as a secretary and William put all he knew about relationships and women, particularly his two wonder women, into starting up the Wonder Woman comic. His creation and the love of the two women Elizabeth and Olive proved enduring.

The film is packed with ideas, many of them quite alternative or even subversive, certainly to the prevailing thoughts in America in the Forties. In a fairly clumsy device, William narrates his story to an interrogating Catholic Child Protection Board, self appointed ‘moral guardians’.

The film itself is fairly clumsy and clunky too, way too sedately paced, tepid and demure for its subject, or its own good – or ours. It throws ideas around but doesn’t clarify them or make them satisfying. But it stays in the interesting category.

It is certainly well acted, strongly and intensely, though Luke Evans sounds a bit too Welsh and doesn’t really look quite right, Rebecca Hall sounds way too English, often like Emma Thompson, and Bella Heathcote looks a bit too old (30 playing 22) and she is an ex-Neighbours actress from Australia. Nevertheless, all three put a lot into it, and some of the situations and lines don’t look a actor’s dream.

Having what amounts to a lesbian love story in the cinema mainstream is commendable, and having someone speaking up for kinky sex in the cinema mainstream is unusual and provocative. But the film soft pedals desperately. Its sex scene is played like a soft-core shampoo ad when something much more Shades of Grey might have been appropriate. The film speaks up strongly for sexual, social and political liberation for women, but the story hardly bears out this idea, as is clearly intended.

However, it does shed a lot of intelligent light on the mores of the day and especially on the Wonder Woman comic. It was always going to be a difficult subject to chew on, but there is certainly a slightly better film here somewhere, even if just one with more pace, more clarity and more spice.

Strong sexual content, including brief graphic images, and strong language are promised, but the film isn’t really that strong.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com