Professor Marston and the Wonder Women | Comic icon's kinky origins

(Image credit: Sony Pictures)

Ever wonder?

Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman gave the superhero genre a zesty girl-power boost last year. But who knew the iconic comic-book heroine’s origins were quite so bizarre? We’re not talking about her Amazonian beginnings on Paradise Island, strange though they undoubtedly are. What’s really far-out is the ménage à trois that lay behind the character’s genesis in early-1940s America, as this eye-opening biopic starring Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote makes clear.

In Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, Evans plays Harvard psychology professor Dr William Moulton Marston, whose academic ideas about submission and dominance fed into his creation of the Wonder Woman comic - as did the polyamorous relationship he enjoyed with his wife Elizabeth (Hall) and their mutual lover, graduate student Olive (Heathcote). This decidedly odd and kinky tale is evidently a passion project for writer-director Angela Robinson (maker of cheeky teen spy spoof D.E.B.S.), and she brings a sly wit and touching sweetness to her telling of it.

Certificate 15. Runtime 108 mins. Director Angela Robinson

Available on Digital, and on DVD from 19 March from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r991pr4Fohk

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.