Luke Evans (High-Rise, Beauty and the Beast), Rebecca Hall (Christine), and Bella Heathcote (Fifty Shades Darker) star in this biopic of William Moulton Marston, the American psychologist who put his progressive ideals about female liberation into practice by creating the DC superhero Wonder Woman and living in an "extended relationship" with his wife and another woman.
The true story of Wonder Woman's genesis is more action-packed than anything dreamed up for the comic books. Professor Marston & the Wonder Women reveals how a trio of brilliant thinkers embraced an unconventional lifestyle and gave birth to an icon of female power.
It is the 1920s, and William and Elizabeth Marston (Luke Evans and Rebecca Hall) are easily the most glamorous academics on the campus of Tufts University. Gifted young student Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote) is drawn into the couple's orbit. She takes Bill's psychology class and soon becomes an invaluable research assistant: she sneaks the Marstons into a sorority "baby party," an event that bolsters their provocative theories about dominance, submission, and eros.
Flirtation infuses the heady air of grand ideas until Bill, Elizabeth, and Olive become a threesome in the bedroom as well as the academy. Their arrangement will cost them dearly, but their struggle to live on their own terms prompts Bill to draw upon his research to create the lasso-wielding Amazonian goddess that would give girls someone to look up to in the male-dominated milieu of comic books.
Directed by Angela Robinson, Professor Marston & the Wonder Women is a hugely entertaining tribute to the curiosity, courage, and creativity of these iconoclastic pioneers.
CAMERON BAILEY
Screenings
Scotiabank 3
Princess of Wales
Elgin Theatre
Scotiabank 14
Elgin Theatre
Winter Garden Theatre