The Wonder, which will debut on Netflix, centres on a young Irish girl who claims she hasn’t eaten in four months.
Friends, rejoice because it appears like the long wait for Florence Pugh to feature in a film deserving of her skill is finally over. Not only that, but the actor from Midsommar’s newest film appears to be almost as sinister and cult-like as her breakthrough part. And now she can be British once more! In the Pugh-niverse, the day is indescribably lovely.
It is a miracle, if that makes sense—at least, that’s what The Wonder wants you to believe.
Pugh plays Lib Wright, an English nurse from the Victorian era who is dispatched to a small town in the Irish midlands to watch over a mystery young girl. Once there, she discovers that her 11-year-old charge, Anna O’Donnell (newcomer Kla Lord Cassidy), claims to only eat “manna from heaven” and hasn’t eaten anything for four months. In the trailer, a dubious Lib inquires, “And how does it feel?” Anna responds, “Full.”
The ethereal and minimalist footage continues to give us tiny views into Lib’s increasingly cramped world as her steadfast drive to save the girl starts to clash with the neighborhood’s steadfast adherence to their faith. Set over a taut score by Matthew Herbert, the film’s tone feels like a quieter version of the putrefying religious fanaticism in Robert Eggers’ The Witch, and the visual of the desolate, burning cabins staged against a beautiful but cold vista feels like, well, a quieter version of Robert Eggers’ The Northman.
Sebastián Lelio, whose earlier works include Disobedience and the Academy Award-winning A Fantastic Woman, is the director of The Wonder. The 2016 book of the same name by Room author Emma Donoghue, on which Anna’s persona is based, explores the actual Victorian phenomenon of “fasting girls.”