Movie Review: Professor Marston And The Wonder Women (2017)

A biographical drama, Professor Marston And The Wonder Women explores the role of psychology, sexuality and feminism in the creation of an iconic comic book hero.

In 1945 Professor William Marston (Luke Evans) is being grilled by a morality committee headed by child advocate Josette Frank (Connie Britton) about the barely concealed scenes of eroticism and bondage in his hugely successful Wonder Woman comics.

Flashbacks to the 1920s reveal Marston teaching psychology at Radcliffe College and developing his theory about the role of Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance (DISC) in relationships, especially between men and women. A staunch feminist, Marston is married to the whip smart and equally blunt Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall), herself studying for a doctorate. The couple take on attractive student Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote) as a research assistant.

Sexual sparks ignite between all three, and soon they have a tool to help disclose their most intimate thoughts: William and Elizabeth invent the lie detection machine, Olive participates as a test subject. and admits to being in love with both Marstons. The trio eventually agree to live together in a polyamoric arrangement, and the combined strengths of both women inspire William to create Wonder Woman.

Based on real events (although this is disputed by Marston's descendents), Professor Marston And The Wonder Women is a story of one man and two women ahead of their time. Director and writer Angela Robinson creates an invigorating human drama fueled by empowered women, equality between intellectually compatible partners, and almost open polyamory, a scandalous proposition for the time.

The threads connecting the graphic comics themes with Marston's psychology theories emerge through his interrogation by self-appointed guardians of morality. Marston's personal kinkiness is certainly reflected in his art, but Wonder Woman's commitment to the truth and her covert integration within the world of men to exert her influence are grounded in his beliefs that women are better leaders, whether they act dominant (Elizabeth) or submissive (Olive).

The film suffers from a few emotional u-turns, Elizabeth in particular instigating more than one head-snapping reversal. Robinson's pacing in the final act also wobbles: many years, children and incidents are crammed into too few minutes. The unconventional family's struggle in a non-welcoming society and Wonder Woman's societal impact both lose in the competition for screen time.

But buoyed by inquisitive performances from Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote, Robinson is free to mix the eroticism of burgeoning love with inspiration drawn from sexual creativity. Wonder Woman's emergence from the bowels of a kink shop harbouring the mixed souls of two strong women is a fitting climax.

A superhero-inspired story for adults, Professor Marston And The Wonder Women revels in real-world heroism: unbound love and curiosity, a quest for truth and honesty, and a celebration of women's varied strengths.



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Movie Review: Permission (2017)

A romantic drama, Permission attempts an edgy take on couplehood challenges but gets caught between truncated courage and familiar convention.

In New York City, music student Anna (Rebecca Hall) and wood craftsman Will (Dan Stevens) are lifelong sweethearts approaching their thirties. He is building a house and planning to propose, but over dinner, a half-drunken Reece (Morgan Spector), Will's business partner and the boyfriend of Anna's bother Hale (David Joseph Craig), challenges the couple to consider experimenting with other sexual partners before they get hitched. 

The idea carries appeal and they give each other permission to sleep with others. Anna hooks up with musician Dane (François Arnaud), while Will sleeps with cougar client Lydia (Gina Gershon). The affairs complicate their relationship, but they push ahead with other physical liaisons. Meanwhile Hale's desire to adopt a child is not shared by Reece, leading to conflict in that relationship.

An independent production willing to venture into more original terrain, Permission proposes a curious enough premise with a long-established couple agreeing to experiment with sexual affairs. As relationship tests go, sleeping around with strangers for the sole purpose of avoiding lifelong monogamy is extreme sport.

But writer and director Brian Crano shortchanges the narrative opportunities, reducing the experiment consequences to petty arguments about sexual performance and appendage size. Will and Anna avoid probing revelations, side-stepping meaningful discussions about what the liaisons are exposing in terms of individual emotions and relationship weaknesses. Instead Will's resentment emerges in questions about the quality of the sex sessions between Anna and Dane, vanilla jealousy a disappointingly trite trajectory for the movie to pursue. 

Also absent is the foundational basis for the love between the couple. Anna and Will are presented as lovers from a young age and always intended for each other, but their bond is not demonstrated in any essential way, while their mechanical sex hints at an already stale relationship. When adversity strikes, they have little to lean back on.

For a relatively short 96 minute movie, Permission both leaves too much unsaid and spreads itself too thin. The child adoption drama between Reece and Hale is a tired tension source and mainly serves to get in the way, a gay couple grappling with financial stress and diverging family ambitions questionably presented as a novelty. A subplot at the park playground where Hale befriends an exhausted new father (Jason Sudeikis) is lost in the shuffle.

Permission looks gorgeous, Crano bathing the movie in cool purple neons and crisp darkness. But the gleaming packaging cannot hide a core more squishy than brave.

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Movie Review: Christine (2016)

A biographical drama about coping with depression, Christine explores the build-up of suppressed anxiety to acute levels.

It's the early 1970s, and Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) is a field reporter with a Sarasota, Florida television station, approaching her 30th birthday. Professionally respected but socially awkward, she prepares and presents the Suncoast Digest segment, focusing on local politics and people. Station manager Michael Nelson (Tracy Letts) finds her material boring, and with the ratings sinking, prods Christine towards more sensational journalism. She resists and they clash constantly.

In her private life Christine is single, tense and depressed, although she does volunteer as a puppeteer at a children's hospital. She harbors a secret crush on station anchor George Ryan (Michael C. Hall), while still living with her mother Peg (J. Smith-Cameron), and suffering through bouts of severe abdominal pains. When the station owner Bob Anderson (John Cullum) announces opportunities for a promotion to a higher-profile Baltimore station, the competitive stress levels at work are heightened.

An independent production based on a true and shocking story, Christine delves into the reporter's life with a mixture of real and imagined events. Written and co-produced by Craig Shilowich and directed by Antonio Campos, the film explores the dichotomy of a woman respected for her principled professional standards, and indeed looked up to by colleagues, but personally and quietly suffering the devastating impacts of depression.

Campos invests plenty of screen time to tease out the attributes and dynamics of his lead character within her work environment. Yes there are petty professional jealousies and arguments about the trajectory of news-as-entertainment, but Christine is recognized as smart, ambitious, and confident, embracing feminism and willing to protect her integrity and fight against the rising tide of blood-and-gore ambulance-chasing news coverage.

Yet away from work the insecurities are gnawing away at her psyche. She is socially uneasy, difficult to approach, and cannot get any man to pay her any attention. Desperate for male companionship and eager to start a family, instead she is confronted with a grievous medical diagnosis. And conversations with her mother Peg include dark references to how badly everything ended at her previous job in Boston.

The film maintains a pragmatic matter-of-factness and focus on the one individual, Campos alternating the action between the local television station resplendent with garish 1970s-era decor (yellow and orange everywhere) and Christine's cramped apartment. He draws a stellar performance from Rebecca Hall, who carries the entire film. With a slightly bent but still assured public posture, she conveys the clash between internal insecurities and a dogged external determination to soldier on.

Life reaches a crossroads of apparent dead-ends, shattered personal and professional expectations, and an unacceptable imperative to conform. Despite all the seemingly insurmountable difficulties, the film nevertheless captures the sometimes difficult to discern but always present love and respect surrounding Christine, both at home and at work.

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Movie Review: Please Give (2010)

A quirky comedy and drama, Please Give offers low key but astute commentary about family relationships, guilt and death.

In New York City, Kate (Catherine Keener) and her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) run a mid-century furniture resale business. They buy their stock from the apartments of recently deceased elderly people, taking advantage of grown children during their moment of grief. Kate is wracked by guilt, and hands money to every seemingly homeless person. She is also having trouble communicating with her teenaged daughter Abby (Sarah Steele), who is suffering from a bad skin condition.

Kate and Alex have purchased the next-door apartment occupied by crusty ninety-two year old Andra (Ann Guilbert), with plans to expand into her unit when the old woman dies. Andra is cared for by her kind granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a mammogram technician who lives with her more contemptuous sister Mary (Amanda Peet), a skin care therapist. The lives of Alex, Kate and Abby start to intertwine with Rebecca and Mary in unexpected ways.

Death as an avenue for profit is always a queasy topic rich with possibilities. Writer and director Nicole Holofcener finds the damp patches of guilt in this well-constructed and character-rich story, and Please Give is filled with calibrated moments of pleasure along with honest, funny, awkward and sometimes painful human contact.

To assuage her guilt Kate is a one-woman charity, distributing bills to New York's homeless population and then some. Except Kate is much less generous with her daughter Abby, who is desperate for a new pair of jeans, and Holofcener elegantly folds in the unintended consequences of charity that begins outside the home.

Abby's teenage traumas are relatively typical for a white privileged child of wealthy parents, but her angst is also the spark that forges connections with the sister pair of Rebecca and Mary. Her skin condition brings the opportunistic Mary into focus, while the considerate Rebecca offers Abby a comforting bond over dog walking.

Meanwhile the husband and wife team of Kate and Alex appear to be friends and business partners, but perhaps they lost the passion in the gap between his dismissive iciness and her remorseful fretting. Suddenly Alex is flirting with Mary, who is happy to embark on another ill-considered adventure. Meanwhile, Kate's exploration of volunteer opportunities at charity organizations is all kinds of wrong funny.

Please Give demands strong performances to work, and the cast delivers. Rebecca emerges as the pure heart of the film, and Rebecca Hall shines in a role full of selfless commitment. Catherine Keener is also excellent in conveying an exterior of polished professionalism barely concealing gobs of self-loathing.

With the elderly Andra and the grandmother (Lois Smith) of Rebecca's new boyfriend also meddling in the lives of their offspring, Please Give is a candid and clever probe of dynamics between four generations of women.

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Movie Review: The Gift (2015)

An intriguing suspense drama, The Gift uncovers its secrets with mischievous expertise.

Married couple Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) relocate back to Los Angeles for a fresh start and move into a dream home in the suburbs. Although Simon is on the fast-track to success at his corporate job in technology security, their marriage is tense due to a miscarriage and unspoken hints about Robyn's career burnout. At the mall they bump into Gordon (Joel Edgerton), Simon's slightly awkward former classmate from high school days.

Gordon appears to be a loner, claims to be ex-military and has otherwise not done much in his life. He starts showing up uninvited to Simon and Robyn's home, bringing them gifts and lingering for dinner. Simon wants nothing to do with his weird ex-schoolmate and insists on curtailing contact. Robyn is more sympathetic towards Gordon and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Soon Gordon's intrusions trigger layers of lies, secrets and threats, further straining Simon and Robyn's relationship.

Exploring the broad definition of antisocial behaviour and damage from the past haunting the present, The Gift is an expert blend of psychology, suspense and social unease. The film is character-rich, and uses intriguing locations, unspoken words and a build-up of palpable tension to create a Hitchcockian experience with just a dash of Cape Fear.

The directorial debut of Joel Edgerton who also wrote the script, The Gift rides a shifty rhythm of gradual revelations. The film feints towards the story of a creepy guy bothering an appealing couple before dropping tactful hints that tension can and will emanate from various unexpected sources. Edgerton plays his cards with deliberate care, investing in all three characters to build sympathy and tease out strengths and failings.

What emerges is a narrative that dares to skip past traditional roles of victims and aggressors, subverting expectations and challenging norms around personal responsibility, achievement and success. No one escapes unscathed from the flare up of personal protectionism, denial and multiple rounds of retribution.

The three central performances are all grounded by the steady script. Edgerton gives himself the most unsettling role as Gordon, but Jason Bateman also deserves credit for a veiled turn as the cocky Simon, so sure that he can deal with a fragile wife and annoying wannabe friend. Rebecca Hall is disarmingly natural in her portrayal of Robyn, carrying the burden of recent traumas and yet wanting to believe in the good within the men around her.

Expertly packaged and carefully unwrapped, The Gift keeps on giving.

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Movie Review: The Town (2010)

A crime thriller, The Town combines high intensity action with a thoughtful exposition of characters and place.

The blue collar Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown is known as home to career criminals, with crime legacies passed on from fathers to sons. The cerebral Doug (Ben Affleck) and the more impulsive Jem (Jeremy Renner) are best friends and second generation bank and armored car robbers, leading a gang that acts on orders issued by mastermind "The Florist" (Pete Postlethwaite). Doug's father Stephen (Chris Cooper) is serving life in prison, while Jem served nine years for murder. Doug maintains a choppy sexual relationship with troubled neighbourhood girl Kris (Blake Lively).

The gang successfully robs a bank, but briefly seize manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage. They are dismayed to later discover she lives near the neighbourhood and may be able to identify them. Doug gets close to Claire to determine whether she is cooperating with the FBI. They fall in love, complicating his relationship with the rest of the gang members and triggering a burning desire for him to leave crime behind. Meanwhile, Jem begins to exhibit more violent tendencies while FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) starts to close in.

Directed and co-written by Affleck, The Town is an adaptation of the Chuck Hogan book Prince Of Thieves. The film is an expertly constructed and executed character-driven crime thriller. Delving deep into the neighbourhood community, Affleck creates a sense of place where the roots below the surface are thick and deeply intertwined, uncompromising fortitude is embraced as a badge of honour, debts are owed across generations, fathers throw long shadows across their sons' lives, and crime is a family profession like any other.

In classic fashion Affleck places his three action set-pieces at the beginning, middle and end of the movie. The heists scenes fluently capture the thrills, mishaps, and on-the-fly improvisation demanded by high-stakes armed robbery, the rational editing and thoughtful camerawork dramatically enhancing the action.

Even more impressive is the focus on people. Affleck pulls the covers back on a social structure functioning within a set of unwritten codes. While Doug, Jem, Kris and their colleagues will never generate sympathy, Affleck does create understanding for men and women who only know what they know. Doug falling in love with outsider Claire and wanting out disrupts the natural order, and sets off a disruptive and naturally violent chain reaction.

The romance between Doug and Claire has to exist as the catalyst for change, but is perhaps the least convincing aspect of the film. Although it is conceivable for Doug to fall for the girl from the right side of the tracks and imagine her as an escape route to a better life, it is more of a stretch to believe what she sees in him, despite his engineered meet-sad-cute laundromat moment.

The cast is deep in talent and enriches every role. Small turns by Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Blake Lively are delivered with chilling conviction, while the more prominent performances by Affleck and Renner exude the requisite grit.

Forceful and absorbing, The Town crackles with coiled and sometimes explosive energy.

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The Movies Of Rebecca Hall

All movies starring Rebecca Hall and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Prestige (2006)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Please Give (2010)

The Town (2010)

Tumbledown (2015)

The Gift (2015)

Christine (2016)

Permission (2017)

Professor Marston And The Wonder Women (2017)

Teen Spirit (2018)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Tumbledown (2015)

A romantic drama with a sprinkling of humour, Tumbledown carries plenty of charm as it works its way through the late stages of personal grief.

In a small town in Maine, Hannah Miles (Rebecca Hall) is a young widow still grieving the death two years prior of her husband Hunter. He was an up-and-coming folk singer who released just one album prior to his mysterious death. Protective of Hunter's legacy, Hannah fends off persistent approaches from New York-based professor Andrew McCabe (Jason Sudeikis) to interview her for a book about talented musicians who died early.

Hannah takes a crack at writing Hunter's biography, but her friend and local bookstore owner Upton (Griffin Dunne) convinces her that she needs writing help. She swallows her pride and hires Andrew as her co-author. He moves into her cabin and as he starts to uncover details about Hunter's life and death, an undeniable attraction develops between the widow and the academic.

Directed by Sean Mewshaw and written by Desiree Van Til, Tumbledown is an appealing journey along the seam between mourning and living. The film blends lightweight drama and wry humour in balanced doses and benefits from a rustic rural setting. Mewshaw maintains a light mood and brisk pacing as the story explores weighty themes, while the folk music soundtrack adds a melancholy tone.

The road to recovery from the untimely death of a loved one is an arduous process, and Tumbledown captures Hannah at the place where she can have fun, laugh and fight for what she believes in, but where she also remains beholden to the memory of a happier time and a partner who grows more ideal by his absence. Andrew is further along in his trip away from a similar trauma but is caught looking for obvious answers in a complex reality.

The film does not escape the linearity of romantic movies that start with two attractive people clashing furiously, and some plot developments such as Andrew moving into Hannah's cabin happen with illogical speed. But one of Tumbledown's graceful achievements is in avoiding some of the more obvious genre traps. Hannah will of course chart a course towards loving again, but not before she exposes Andrew to some unexpected lessons about the magic that develops in perfect unions, relationship nuggets unleashed by welcoming Andrew into Hunter's sanctuary.

Rebecca Hall infuses Tumbledown with most of its appeal. She sometimes slips briefly into overacting, but mostly straddles a fine line between Hannah's wicked independent streak and her still-tender emotional scars. Jason Sudeikis is more monotonal and less convincing as a romantic lead.

The rest of the cast features a quirky mix, and includes Blythe Danner and Richard Masur as Hannah's parents, Dianna Agron as Andrew's girlfriend Finley, and Joe Manganiello as Hannah's hunter-gatherer casual sex buddy.

Despite some predictable constraints that come with the territory of romantic movies, Tumbledown is a relatively elegant and thoughtful search for love on the far side of emotional damage.

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Movie Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Woody Allen's exploration of modern romantic misadventures is clever, funny, and filled with engaging characters who are only slightly exaggerated.

The brunette Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is practical and down to earth. She is engaged to be married to Doug (Chris Messina), a nice guy with a reliable job. Her best friend, the blonde Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), is flighty and adventurous. She is looking for something, but only knows that whatever she has found so far is not it.

Vicky and Cristina decide to spend a summer in Barcelona, and soon they both meet and fall under the spell of the passionate artist Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Javier Bardem). Vicky's brief and unexpected fling with Juan Antonio knocks her world off its axis. Cristina enters into a longer term romance with Juan Antonio, but soon find herself the catalyst in the turbulent reconciliation between Juan Antonio and his former wife, the wild Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz).

As usual, Allen's characters speak the way normal people do, with unsure pauses, irony-free hesitancy, and the seemingly inadvertent stepping on each other's sentences. It's the closest that scripts come to pretending to be ad-libbed, and it immediately elevates Allen's characters closer to real people. Allen also avoids any contrived scenes of high drama and climactic emotions or confrontations, preferring as usual to deploy his low key approach that mimics real life instead of life as Hollywood likes to imagine it.

Vicky and Cristina both go through several turbulent transformations in the movie, and both Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson admirably provide the necessary understated depth to portray, with a mixture of sadness and humour, the upheaval that unexpected love can cause. 

Bardem as Juan Antonio is the eye of the hurricane, and therefore does not have to emotionally move very much as chaos reigns around him. Penelope Cruz gets the showiest role as Maria Elena, a joyfully unrestrained force of nature that splatters anyone that surrounds her with a torrent of emotions, raised to the Spanish power.

Allen directs with his usual mix of subdued artistry, allowing the actors to take centre stage while never failing to find the interesting camera angle to remind us of his talent.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is both enjoyable and captivating, and in the often unimaginative world of manufactured romantic comedies, it's a breath of fresh Mediterranean air.

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