Professor Marston & the Wonder Women

Yesterday I saw the movie Proff. Marston and Wonder Women. I am from India and I never read any comics of Wonder Women, but I saw recently released film Wonder Women directed by Patty Jenkins, character played by Gal Gadot then I became aware of Wonder Women.

After few months, I saw this Proff. Marston and Wonder Women, thinking that a new film of Gal Gadot. But to may dismay, this film came out something else, a biography of Proff. Marston who created the comics of Wonder Women.

But after watching this film, I am really thankful to the director Angela Robinson for bringing out the story of Proff. Marston with such a deep understanding of his personal life and roles played by his wife Elizabeth and partner Olive in the creation of Wonder Women.

The film made a profound impact on me, I tried to find out why is it so, then I realized that the director made the use of DISC Theory that Proff. Marston used in all his life and applied it to his comics character of Wonder Women. Really hats off to the director for this.

I am really amazed by the meticulously crafted screenplay that not only captured the deep psyche of all the characters but also of the audience who do not want to miss a single scene or dialogue. Such a profound work! The script is so alive and written with emotion that we can feel the real characters playing the role.

The actors of the film are really praise worthy, whether it is Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall or Bella and others. They actually lived the script on the screen.

Nonetheless, the film's editor Jefferey Werner is the real hero of this film who brought the whole narrative to its life. He is an impeccable craftsman who has deep understanding of the film structure and montage theory. It requires some special skills to understand these complex characters and bringing their story to life without boring the audience.

I liked the camera work of cinematographer Bryce Fortner, there are no camera gimmicks but just simple and effective framing, no unnecessary emotive angles. The director and cinematographer gave all the freedom to the actors to portray deepest emotion that brings out a great dynamics to the screen. I really admire the scene where Bella wears the Amazonian dress; no special lighting but simple chiaroscuro that brings out all the mood and emotion.

The music by Tom Howe and background score is so effective that it keeps us rooted to our emotional journey. And one of the plus point of this film is its Make up, Costume and Art Direction. These areas are very well managed by the respective departments.

I am really moved by the story and life of Proff. Martson the creator of Wonder Woman. Once again my thanks to Angela Robinson for creating such a beautiful film. I wonder why this film is not nominated for Oscers?

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.

When Wonder Woman made her live action big screen debut on opening weekend, a teaser for a movie based on the life of the creator and his relationship with his wife and her friends made the rounds causing lots of buzz. The thing is, the movie was better than the teaser. It's very accurate based on the time period and the casting is great. Unlike the wonder woman movie, this one is not for kids. It's rated R for sex and nudity and it shows. Luke Evans plays the lead role as Prof. Marston, who created the lie detector test and is on his way to create a game changing female super hero who would become the most famous of them all: Wonder Woman. I'm surprised that this movie didn't get any Oscar love (same for Wonder Woman 2017). Give this one a rental and see for yourself how wonderful this movie is.

I had a feeling that the title was propaganda to get me into the seats. After all, Wonder Woman was one of 2017's best pictures, so I figure the title of this movie (as well as the well done poster) was a way to get butts into the seats. Not that I want my money back, cause it was an excellent movie. It was lots of fun and it made me chuckle a lot of times, but if your here because you want to learn more about Wonder Woman, the movie is not designed like that specifically.

What I knew about William Marston before was that he created Wonder Woman (right!), the same guy who created Wonder Woman created the lie detector test (But the movie does point out how much his wife contributed to this) and that the original Wonder Woman comics was filled with images of bonding and S&M (Which according to the movie visualized Marston's theories on human behavior) . What I did not know is that this guy was in a three way relationship with his wife and one of his students. This part of the movie seems to take center stage above anything else.

Once again ,I'm not complaining, cause it made for one of the most interesting love stories I've ever seen. Not really into romance movies, and you can make an argument that it's not, but what stands out for me in this film is a story about three people trying to be in a loving relationship with one another in a world that's still not really ready for what is going on here. So, it was a romance film done differently, under a mask of  the drama and the biography( How very Superhero-like of them).

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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...