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film review

Rebecca Hall stars as Elizabeth Marston, Luke Evans as Dr. William Marston and Bella Heathcote as Olive Byrne.Claire Folger

Wonder Woman has always been steeped in controversy: too powerful, too subversive, too mired in S&M imagery. But while the comic regularly came under fire, especially in the 1940s, it was the relationship between her creator Professor William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans), wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston (Rebecca Hall), and their live-in partner, Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), that drew even more scrutiny.

And that's the focus of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. After meeting at Harvard in the 1920s, the three begin a romantic relationship and are ostracized as a result. Eventually, inspired by the women in his own life, Marston goes on to create Wonder Woman as an homage to female strength.

Writer-director Angela Robinson sets the emotional bar high by using the trio's relationship as the vessel through which Marston reconciles with his own pride and misogyny. However, with so much covered in under two hours, it might have been more effective to concentrate on a specific era or aspect of each character's story.

Because like the Wonder Woman mythos itself, there's almost too much ground to cover in just a single instalment.

A new TV series explores the life of notorious Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto. Actor Tony Nappo says the revenge tale, which debuts on City on Thursday, is “almost Shakespearean.”

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