Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

Annapurna Pictures

2017 has been the year of Wonder Woman, at least in the realm of pop culture, and now there's a fascinating behind-the-scenes tale of the people who dreamed up the Amazonian superhero who stands for love. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is about William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans), Elizabeth Holloway Marston (Rebecca Hall), and Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), three psychology researchers at Tufts University who fell in love during the liberated 1920s. Eventually they had four children (each woman bore two) and lived together for their whole adult lives. Along the way, they invented Wonder Woman together, though only William Marston (under the pen name Charles Moulton) was given credit for it.

It's one of the most unusual love stories ever to be told on film, and it illuminates a time in history that most have forgotten. Between roughly 1910 and the mid-1930s, there was a flowering of feminist and sexual liberation movements in Europe and the US, leading to birth-control clinics, women's suffrage, the infamous Kinsey Reports, and even a 1919 German film called Different from the Others, about the urgent need for gay rights. Marston, who championed women's right to vote, was deeply involved in these movements with his partners. Byrne was the daughter of feminist activist Ethel Byrne, who cofounded the organization that later became Planned Parenthood with her sister Margaret Sanger. Elizabeth Marston was one of the first women to earn a law degree in the US and had a master's degree in psychology.

Instead of focusing on this political backdrop, however, writer/director Angela Robinson gives us an intimate look at the relationship that grows between Byrne and the Marstons. Byrne becomes their research assistant as they attempt to perfect the lie detector test. In real life, the Marstons did come up with the first lie detector design, with Elizabeth making the crucial breakthrough that elevated heart rate is a key indicator of deception. We see all this in the film, but mostly we watch the three using their prototype to play a scientifically enhanced version of truth or dare. "Do you love Olive?" Elizabeth asks her husband when he's wired to the machine (his "no" registers as a lie); later, William asks Olive if she loves Elizabeth.

All this eventually leads to everyone having to admit that they are in love with each other. We see the first hints of Wonder Woman's origins at the moment the threesome consummates their forbidden attraction. Hiding in the drama department's costume closet, they have a sweet, silly sexual romp in various costumes (Greek goddess, soldier, leopard girl) that later turn up in the pages of the comic. The lie detector itself becomes the lasso of truth.

As their relationship deepens over many years, Robinson makes sure to telegraph how Elizabeth and Olive inspired pretty much everything about Wonder Woman. For many years, the character was an overtly feminist heroine fighting patriarchal power. Robinson has done her homework here, reading Marston's psychological treatises on why women would make better leaders than men because they are loving rather than warlike. The real-life Marston said many times that he created Wonder Woman to teach men to respect female authority and to give women a hero of their own. Wonder Woman's benevolent strength is offered as an antidote to the fascist militarism of "Man's World."

Perhaps the movie's greatest strength is the way it uses all the cinematic tricks of traditional historical drama to tell what is an incredibly non-traditional story. Our characters' romance is shot in golden light, with lots of yearning and tastefully framed love scenes. When the three move in together, we see them romping delightedly in a suburban backyard with their children and having joyous family dinners. The only dramatic complications come from the judgements of other people. Olive's soon-to-be ex-fiancé says they are corrupting Olive; shortly afterward the Marstons are fired from Tufts for indecency (the real-life truth was much messier: William was fired only once from a job, years before at American University, after being arrested for fraud in a business deal). Years later, a nosy neighbor glimpses the three of them having sex and demands that they take their kids out of school so they won't infect the other children. It's so upsetting that Elizabeth tries to break up with Olive because she fears the world's condemnation of their unconventional lives will harm the kids. Over and over we're told that their love is pure and good, but the world just isn't ready for it.

But there's something just a little too tidy about our protagonists' relationships. We never see them squabbling or doing anything outside their idyllic home life. What was it like for Elizabeth to work as a secretary, despite having two advanced degrees? What was it like for Olive, daughter of a prominent feminist, to be a housewife to her lovers? What did they both think about their husband getting credit for a character they created together? Though it's refreshing to see an unconventional marriage celebrated, it would have been nice to see some of the everyday stresses of long-term relationships and childrearing, too.

Jill Lapore's fascinating book about Marston, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, reveals that Marston was actually a bit of a huckster. He marketed the lie detector as a "Love Meter" and fast-talked his way into the job of "consulting psychologist" at National Periodicals before pitching Wonder Woman to his boss. Writer/director Robinson has said in interviews that her movie is a generous interpretation of real-life events, especially Elizabeth and Olive's sexual relationship. Lapore and other biographers have insisted that there is "no evidence" that the two were lovers. Christie Marston, Elizabeth's granddaughter, has also said that the film is a misrepresentation of her family.

That said, we have no evidence that Elizabeth and Olive weren't lovers. They continued to live together for 38 years after William Marston died. Maybe they spent all those decades in chastity, but it's clear they loved each other. Elizabeth even named her daughter after Olive. Robinson has never claimed the film is anything more than an interpretation of historical events, and it feels like a plausible interpretation. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women may be occasionally clunky, and its truths varnished, but it gives us a remarkable look at how two women's love for each other inspired a man to create one of the greatest and most enduring heroes of the past century.

Listing image by Annapurna Pictures