Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Angela Robinson brings together a top notch cast for this mind-blowing backstory of Wonder Woman creator Dr William Moulton Marston and the two women who almost certainly inspired her. In 1941, psychologist Marston (Luke Evans) pseudo-nymously published Wonder Woman as ‘propaganda for a new type of woman who should rule the world’. Marston’s secret, kept from his neighbours in their quiet suburban enclave, is that he lived in a long-term polyamorous relationship with two women. One was Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), niece of famous suffragette Margaret Sanger. And then there was his wife, fellow psychologist and lawyer Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall).

Robinson’s film seductively imagines the years leading up to the emergence of the comic superheroine: the trio’s love story, their link to early feminism and their interest in sadomasochistic play. It’s a rivetingly good yarn, one that underlines just how much Wonder Woman was intended as feminist and queer disrupter of mainstream values. You’ll never see the golden lasso in quite the same way again!

Tricia Tuttle

Trailer...