London Film Festival: The Wonder review
For four months Ana O’Donnell has supposedly not eaten.
The 11-year-old girl, born into a life of poverty in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century, shows no sign of malnutrition and claims that all she needs to live is ‘manna from heaven’.
Ana’s rural village finds itself at the centre of a theological storm: is she faking it or is she really blessed by God?
In a country that still bares the raw scars of the Irish famine even the locals are divided, tempted to believe in a story of a girl who does not need food.
Sebastian Lelio’s The Wonder, which had its gala premiere at the London Film Festival on Friday evening, asks the audience not to believe in her but to believe in the film (more on that later).
English nurse Lib Wright, played by Florence Pugh, has been dispatched to watch over Ana for two weeks in eight hour shifts along with a nun and determine what is really going on.
Based on a book that was inspired by a ‘true’ story, The Wonder is a tightly-wound chamber piece albeit with a wafer-thin plot.
Florence Pugh, whose star continues to rise and rise, carries the film, supported by an impressive supporting cast; Tom Burke as a snooping journalist and Toby Jones as a doctor striving to find a scientific explanation, are the pick of the bunch.
Newcomer Kila Lord Cassidy almost steals the show as the possibly divine Ana, a little girl so earnest in her belief that she doesn’t need food that even Lib has tiny moments of doubt in her fervent belief of science.
At night, away from Ana, she laments over a knitted pair of baby shoes and falls into drug-addled stupors.
The shadow of the Irish potato famine looms large, the humanistic score by Matthew Herbert almost sounds like the yelps and laments of ghosts.
The film, which is marvellously shot, does not delve very deep into the questions it raises. There are those who believe the girl and those who don’t, their reasons skitted over instead of explored beyond ‘we believe in God and you don’t’. It feels like a missed opportunity.
A decision by Lello to give the film a Brechtian framing device might jar with some viewers — The Wonder opens not in Ireland circa 1862 but instead in a large, decidedly 21st century soundstage.
“We are nothing without stories,” Pugh narrates directly to the audience in the opening minutes, “so we invite you to believe in this one.”
The camera pans around to find Pugh in situ as Lib Wright, heading to Ireland to find out the truth — but do we believe?
The Wonder will begin streaming on Netflix on November 16 following a brief theatrical run.
