If you're a fan of Wonder Woman and don't know the story behind her inception, then this is movie for you. Directed by Angela Robinson, the mind behind "Herbie: Fully Loaded" and "D.E.B.S.," "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women" tells the story of William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans), the man who created the iconic superhero. In this case, the maxim "behind every great man there's a great woman" is doubly true, as Marston had two formidable women in his life who aided in the process.
Marston was a psychology professor at Harvard in the 1920s. Along with his wife Elizabeth (a formidable scholar herself), he developed the lie detector test, an invention that played a huge part in his famous comic books. William and Elizabeth come into contact with a student named Olive Byrne, who just happens to be the daughter of famed suffragette Ethel Byrne and the niece of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. William, Elizabeth, and Olive enter a professional arrangement that quickly turns romantic, and they endeavor to live a life together in a polyamorous relationship, raising children in the suburbs. It's during this time that William, inspired by the two women, creates Wonder Woman.
While the precise nature of the trio's relationship remains contested (via Vulture), the film tells a fascinating story about what it takes to buck social conventions and live by your own moral code. It's thrilling to see how a character as iconic and influential as Wonder Woman was originated, and it's even more exciting to finally get to know the two women instrumental in her conception. How would the world differ without Elizabeth and Olive?
