Welcome to Spring Term 2024! I am beginning the second term of my course and I thought it would be great to start with recalling my holidays' inspirations. I have no doubts that it is a film I watched few days before the New Year came. The film is called "The Wonder" (2022) and was made by Sebastian Lelio, a Chilean director. When I googled the name of director I was wondering why he was interesting in this kind of story. Let me explain..
The movie is based on the 2016 novel "The Wonder" written by Emma Donoghue. The story tells us about the girl Anna O'Donnell in an Irish village during the Great Famine in 1862 and her miracle survival without food for four months. She states that she lives with a help of manna from heaven. An English nurse Lib Wright was brought to watch Anna and figure out how this wonder happened. As story goes, we then see how a nurse is forced to save eleven-year old child from own parents.
"The Wonder" (2022) by Sebástian Lelio
The role of the nurse was played by Florence Pugh, an English actress who is also well-known for the roles in such movies as "Little Women", "Oppenheimer", "Don't worry Darling", "Dune: Part Two" and others. I was extremely impressed and inspired by her performance in "The Wonder". She very truly conveyed all the pain and drama of her character and her attitude to the character of child Anna. It was interesting to observe all her feelings and living all the events with her in front of the screen. Florence herself says: "I choose roles where there’s always something that that woman is pushing back on and loudly pushing back on, and it’s something that I love playing, whether it’s in a different era".
The critics recognise the interesting way of the beginning of the story where the "fourth wall" is broken between the actor and the audience. Here are some of the words from which the story begins: “The people you are about to meet, the characters, believe in their story with complete devotion". The filmmakers also focused on the connection between two main characters very well trying to make it relevant for nowadays.
"The nurse and the girl...they are fictional characters, but what they represent is not. It's real. It's about power dynamics that have been taking place before, in 1860, today, and will continue to take place, against we change the way in which we relate to each other. So I thought it was very... It was urgently...a film about today. And I think that's what attracted me" - Sebástian Lelio, the director of the film.
For myself, it was a story about the collision of faith and science. The faith was represented by Anna, her parents, a nun and a group of notable Irish men and the science was represented by the nurse Lib. Some people may say that this film is against the faith or beliefs in God, however I wouldn't say so. I think it is about the balance between mind and beliefs. Because in this sort we see how parents make the child believe that it is her fate to suffer and die after her brother. They don't give the food to their child, how the nurse wouldn't try to explain to them that it is not fate, it is just a child who needs food to live.
The Upcoming (2022). Sebastián Lelio on The Wonder, Florence Pugh. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/OTKjUxSScJA?si=N4jwVPoX4rZC0_7v [Accessed 14 Jan. 2024].
Moss, M. (2022). Florence Pugh found The Wonder character ‘infuriating’ to play. [online] Radio Times. Available at: https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/the-wonder-netflix-florence-pugh-exclusive-newsupdate/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2024].
Kermode, M. (2022). The Wonder review – a haunting period drama of faith and reason. The Guardian. [online] 30 Oct. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/30/the-wonder-review-a-haunting-period-drama-of-faith-and-reason [Accessed 10 Jan. 2024].
On one hand helping and on the other hand harming
Film about intellectual rigidity
Good that you have completed this - I have seen The Wonder, you could have looked at what other critics said as it was based on true stories of 'fasting girls' and also it is an interesting device to draw attention to oneself but at the same time with an aim of disappearing this dichotomy of the action taken is even more interesting
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