The Wonder

The Wonder

Starring Florence Pugh, Kila Lord Cassidy, Tom Burke, Elaine Cassidy

Directed by Sebastian Lelio

It has to be a difficult occupation to be a nurse, especially when you're tending to someone as they slowly deteriorate to the end of their life. To just sit by and watch helplessly as someone refuses aid and help, giving into their more zealous religious beliefs rather than practical medicine. Or someone who watches as something terrible happens to someone else, and being totally incapable of helping them. Just watching in general is a terrible thought, as we're all programmed inherently to want to help our fellow man, and not being able to is a nightmare. Such is the story of "The Wonder," a film that's darkly beautiful in its storytelling that pulls us in as a helpless watcher much like our protagonist, forced to sit back and watch as a young girl could possibly die by her own religious beliefs.

In 1862 English nurse Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) arrives in Ireland at the behest of a council who's assigned to possibly witness a miracle. In the barren countryside, young Anna O'Donnell (Kila Lord Cassidy) has taken a fast and hasn't eaten, and both Lib and a nun are assigned to watch the girl to make sure what she's saying is true, because not only hasn't she eaten, she's supposedly hasn't eaten in four months. Believing it to be a hoax, Lib accepts the job and tends to Anna, but thinks that her mother Rosaleen (Elaine Cassidy) is slipping her food somehow, and enlists journalist William Byrne (Tom Burke) to tell the story. Yet as the days go by, Anna's condition deteriorates, and Lib worries that the young girl is really fasting in order to atone for a sin that was committed to her in her misguided belief of a tormented afterlife - but she's ordered by the council to not do anything to help her. How long can she just watch before she intervenes in the hopes of saving a young girl's life?

"The Wonder" is a wonderful period piece slow-burn thriller that blends the religious with the practical, a film based on the novel by Oscar-nominated writer Emma Donoghue who wrote the novel that went on to become the Oscar-nominated film "Room," which also showcases the tenacity of the human spirit through impossible odds. While "Room" was about a woman trapped in a room for years, "The Wonder" is about a young girl trapped in a room of her own making - fasting endlessly due to a misguided attempt to atone for a sin that was committed to her that she feels responsible for. Or, at least, that's one interpretation of the film, while the other is much more mysterious: has the girl not really eaten in four months, and if so, is she a living saint? According to medicine, the longest a person can live without eating is ten days, although some have been known to last for weeks, but those are very rare occasions. Here, she's apparently gone four months without, and for all intents and purposes she appears like a normal healthy young girl, at least when Lib first arrives.

Thinking that there's treachery afoot because it's really not possible medically for this to happen, Lib isolates Anna from the rest of her family, and notices she begins deteriorating at a faster pace, thinking this is proof that her family is either secretly feeding her without her knowledge, or she's in on the big con - but she can't understand why this poor family would bring about such a deception in the first place, because they receive no monetary gain from it. It's one of the mysteries in "The Wonder" that isn't approached with a general eye, but rather a passive one, as we witness the events happening as Lib does, as she's told repeatedly that she's only there to observe and not aid the child in any way.

Florence Pugh is one of the best actresses in the business, and her performance here showcases her natural talent to play the role of a female that's often disregarded by the men in her world, and rising to the occasion. Although she's told over and over to not do anything to intervene, she can't help but try to help the young girl from succumbing to her own seemingly religious zealousness to die at a young age as a proposed martyr. Her investigation only leads to more questions, but she never gives up hope that she'll save Anna's life regardless of what other people want, and you sense the resolve and steadfastness in Pugh's delicate performance. Likewise, Kila Lord Cassidy plays Anna with an innocence that's palpable, a character that you can't help but feel for as she continues the self-imposed fast in a misguided attempt at fidelity.

While the other characters were thinly written, this is a period piece that's reminiscent of a two-person play performed by Pugh and Cassidy, something director Sebastian Lelio punctuates during an opening and ending sequence that's something I honestly haven't seen in a movie before that further cements our role in the film as watchers. To further add to the sense of dread composer Matthew Herbert infuses the film with unsettling strings and gongs that gives off an eerie feel. Also while I was watching it I was reminiscent of another excellent period piece film - "The Power of the Dog" - in the cinematography, and later I learned that both were done by cinematographer Ari Wegner that further solidifies the feel of a horror movie with the muted, gloomy gray palette that is heightened by the score and the performances at its heart.

Focusing on the theme of watching, "The Wonder" doesn't attempt to force the viewer into one side or another, but merely acts as a visual aid to allow us to give our own thoughts and emotions to the product. While it does center on certain religious themes, it doesn't ram it down our throats, and neither does it completely disavow the religious in favor of the practical. It exists solely to tell its own story, and it's up to us as the truly passive watcher whether we believe it or not, and it's done with a delicate balance that's not normally seen in borderline-melodramatic films of the same ire.

The Score: A