Time USA - October 23, 2017

103

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Garfield and

Foy build

a sturdy

foundation

he believes, why not create a comic-book

character who embodies that dynamic?

His ideas about sexual submission and

dominance also find their way into

the mix, which raises the hackles of the

white-bread morality police.

Robinson, whose credits

includeTheLWord andTrue Blood,

approaches the story in such a low-

key, unsensational way that the trio’s

beyond-bohemian arrangement is barely

eyebrow-raising. Whatis eyebrow-

raising is the movie’s assessment of how

Marston’s original Wonder Woman—

vital, brainy and a little kinky—

became flattened into the safe, asexual

role model we know today. As enjoyable

as Patty Jenkins’Wonder Woman film is,

today’s WW is definitely SFW. Even in

2017, Marston’s creation is still too much

for us, men and women alike. She was a

wonder who needed to be cut down to

size, and we’re still doing it, whether we

realize it or not. —S.Z.

LONG BEFORE WONDER WOMAN WAS

a big cardboard multiplex cutout,

she was a comic-book dazzler whose

heroic encounters involved bondage,

homosexuality and other ostensibly

aberrant behaviors.Professor Marston

and the Wonder Women is Angela

Robinson’s fascinating and admirably

adult true-life drama about the creation

of the feisty Amazon we think we know

so well. Luke Evans plays William

Moulton Marston, a curious, energetic

professor of psychology at Radcliffe in

the 1920s. His wife and fellow academic

Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) is probably

even smarter. Both fall in love with

a bright young student, Olive Byrne

(Bella Heathcote), an adventure that

destroys their academic careers.

Yet the triangular relationship

endures and deepens over the years,

and by the 1940s Marston’s unorthodox

thinking about life, love and sex sparks

an idea: if women are men’s superiors, as

MOVIES

Love takes

bravery too

BREATHE, THE DIRECTORIAL

debut from actor Andy Serkis

(War for the Planet of the

Apes), may look like one of

those fortifying triumph-

over-adversity movies that

you think you can skip. Not

so fast: it’s really the kind of

quiet, handsome romantic

drama that everyone has for-

gotten how to make—or is

afraid of trying to make. It’s

also based on a true story.

Andrew Garfield plays Robin

Cavendish, a tea broker in

1950s England who’s stricken

with polio at age 28. Para-

lyzed from the neck down,

he’s unable to breathe with-

out a ventilator. Yet Robin

and his young wife Diana

(Claire Foy), who’s pregnant

when her husband falls ill,

build a life together despite

astonishing limitations.

Cavendish would become

a lifelong advocate for the

disabled, and the film’s tone

is at times overly reverential.

But the actors carry the story

ably. When Garfield’s bed-

ridden Robin sees his infant

son for the first time, his

smile is the kind that’s half

made up of invisible tears.

Sometimes happiness is so

keen, it’s painful.

—STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

When Wonder

Woman was

truly a wonder:

Heathcote tries

on the persona

for size

MOVIES

The women behind Wonder Woman

BREATHE: BLEECKER STREET/PARTICIPANT MEDIA; WONDER WOMEN: CLAIRE FOLGER—ANNAPURNA PICTURES