Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman isn't the only movie about the famous superheroine that made it to the big screen last year. There was also Angela Robinson's Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a biopic about American psychologist William Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman. 

It's 1928. William Marston (Luke Evans) and his wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) teach and work on their research at Harvard and Radcliffe College. Williams hires one of his students, Olive Bryne (Bella Heathcote), the daughter of Ethel Bryne and niece of Margaret Sanger, as a new teaching assistant. The three of them fall in love, which was forbidden at the time, and these two women will be his inspiration for the Wonder Woman comics.

Just like Jenkins's film, this is a work of fiction. It is Angela Robinson's interpretation of Marston's life since the account of their intimate life was never made public. That being said, whether it's accurate or not --it's probably the latter since Marston's granddaughter didn't approve of this--, the story Robinson brought to the screen is interesting and provides a nice background to the character of Wonder Woman. 

And it's surprisingly erotic as the film mainly focuses on the sexual part of the relationship between Marston, his wife and their lover. That, however, doesn't do the film any favour. If anything it makes it looks kinda cheap, and I would have liked Robinson to focus a little bit more on the publishing process and legal issues they faced. Also, there's a subplot about a neighbour that isn't developed at all.

Also quite surprising is that there's very little explicit sex considering the film's topic, and Robinson handled the soft-core sex scenes quite well.

Annapurna Pictures

A weird thing about Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is that it is supposed to be about Marston but it ends up being more about his wife as Robinson's script puts a lot of focus on the inner struggle of Elizabeth. This is both a good and a bad thing. Bad because the film isn't supposed to be about her; good because Rebecca Hall gives another great performance, delivering both Elizabeth's intellect and sensitivity.

In addition, Luke Evans gives a good performance as Marston, charming as usual, and Bella Heathcote does very good as Olive, portraying both her determination and vulnerability quite well.