Title: The Wonder
Release Date: November 2, 2022
Director: Sebastián Lelio
Production Company:House Productions | Element Pictures | Screen Ireland
Summary/Review:
I’m game anytime Florence Pugh is in a costume drama. The Wonder is set in rural Ireland in 1862 where Elizabeth “Lib” Wright (Pugh), an English nurse who cared for soldiers in the Crimean War, arrives at the behest of a village panel. They want her to observe Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy), an 11-year-old girl who claims to have not eaten food for four months. Lib finds Anna to be healthy and not desiring to eat, while also not being denied food, and no clear indication that she is being fed on the sly. Pilgrims visit her because they believed her holy, while the local doctor thinks she may have evolved to process nutrients without eating.
Lib and Anna form a bond, and slowly over the course of the film, Lib’s troubled past and Anna’s trauma are revealed. The film has some nice directorial touches and looks like an oil painting come to life. Food and hunger naturally play as themes in the movie picturing an Ireland still haunted by The Great Hunger which ended just before Anna was born. Lib also has many scenes where she does her best thinking while eating. The movie also has a lot to say about patriarchy, sexism, religion, and colonialism. Pugh and Cassidy are great in their roles with the cast including Tom Burke, Niamh Algar, Toby Jones, and Ciarán Hinds
Rating: ***1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 
On netflix which is awesome. Will check it out. Have you seen Pugh in Don’t Worry Darling? Watched that a few days ago. Pretty good movie with an unexpected twist.
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I haven’t. I’d seen the bad reviews so I hadn’t rushed to see it although I probably will at some point.
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I think there are other factors that led to the bad reviews.
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