Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

We liked the acting and cinematography in this story about the love triangle of William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman comics), his wife Elizabeth, and their teaching assistant Olive at Harvard/Radcliffe in the 1920s. Luke Evans (last blogged for playing Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast) as William and Bella Heathcote (most recently in Dark Shadows) as Olive are great but can't hold a candle to the smoldering Rebecca Hall (after Everything Must Go she was in Iron Man 3 and The BFG) as Elizabeth. Connie Britton (last in Beatriz at Dinner) and Oliver Platt (after Chef he had a cameo in Rules Don't Apply) have pivotal supporting roles.

Director/writer Angela Robinson (one of the directors, writers and producers of the serieses The L Word, Hung, and True Blood) has made a very sexy movie, including some perhaps-too-long erotic sequences. Marston's actual granddaughter Christie has said the polyamory in the movie is fictitious. But wikipedia says Olive Byrne (1904-1990), niece of Margaret Sanger, was the "live-in mistress" of Marston (1893-1947), a psychology professor who developed the DISC (Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance) theory of human interaction. His wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston (1893-1993) did work with him and they were fascinated by, though perhaps did not actually invent, the polygraph, or lie detector. Olive did live with William and Elizabeth, and wikipedia says that each bore his children, and the women stayed together after his death for the rest of their lives. But Christie wrote an article for the Hollywood Reporter, debunking the "truth" of the movie, though she refused to see it. The article has an unsubtle promotion for another movie about her family, seemingly in development.

The beautiful pictures are shot by Bryce Fortner (we've seen some of his work in the first season of Flaked as well as Ingrid Goes West).

I read a lot of comic books as an adolescent, including Wonder Woman, but the 1940s ones shown in the movie are much racier than mine from years later.

The pretty music by Tom Howe (new to me despite dozens of credits) can be streamed from this link.

For a change, we're a little less enthusiastic than Rotten Tomatoes' critics who are averaging 87% to its audiences' 80. That said, Hall may get some kudos at year end for her formidable Elizabeth.