A powerful and intriguing film about faith, trauma and the narratives we create to survive, The Wonder stars Florence Pugh as Lib, an English nurse hired to come to a small Irish village and observe what could be an elaborate hoax or a genuine miracle: 11-year-old Anna (Kíla Cassidy) has reportedly not eaten in four months.

In 1862, Ireland is still traumatised by the Famine, and for many in the small, pious village, the idea of a “fasting girl” becomes a symbol not only of the mercy of God, but also the resilience of faith. Lib’s job, as she is informed by a panel of male village elders, is simply to observe Anna, not to intervene in any way – even as Anna’s condition begins to rapidly decline.

As Lib forms a relationship with Anna, the audience is invited to question their own belief system, and to come to understand the way each character has constructed a narrative in order to survive – even if it puts a girl’s life at risk.

Kíla Lord Cassidy as Anna O’Donnell in The Wonder. Cr. Aidan Monaghan/Netflix © 2022

It’s directed by Oscar-winning Chilean Sebastian Lelio, whose previous movies – A Fantastic Woman, Disobedience and Gloria Bell among them – have all provided complex, empathetic portraits of women. But the source material is homegrown: The Wonder is adapted by Irish writer Emma Donoghue from her acclaimed 2016 novel of the same name.

Donoghue was inspired by the so-called “fasting girls” of the 19th century: girls, usually pre-adolescent, who were claimed to survive for months without food. Though historians now often view this phenomenon as early examples of anorexia nervosa, at the time they were often treated by communities and the media as sensations, or miracles.

“I know of about 60 cases,” says Donoghue, sitting beside Lelio in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. “Some in America, some in the UK, some who were very obviously Catholic. Some who weren’t religious at all, some who were discussed just in terms of being a medical anomaly. Some of them were found out and exposed to be hoaxers, some were not, some were watched and died, and some were watched and started eating again.

“There was a real variety of cases, but what they all had in common was that they were all women or girls, and everyone around them was very excited about the fact that they didn’t need food. It was this persistent cultural fantasy of the girl who lives without food. It’s such a specific phenomenon, but so suggestive of our collective, bizarre attitude to the female body – ‘What if we could have a girl but she never had a period, never had a body, never had sex, never needed to eat, never gave birth. She’s the bodyless woman.’”

Donoghue is aware of the persistently dysfunctional relationship modern society has with women’s bodies, and how media still insists on presenting young women with images of emaciated bodies and declaring it beauty. The Wonder feels notably mindful in its approach to the body and appetite: Anna’s body is never shown in detail and her fast is never glamourised.

In fact, scenes where we see Pugh’s character relishing the meals she is given instead subtly highlight the life-giving force of food, and fuel for Lib’s emotional strength and resilience. As she develops a relationship with Anna, she is increasingly aghast at the complicity of her family, the community, and the town elders as they simply watch the young girl fade away, rather than intervening.

Pugh’s role is loosely based on the real case of Welsh girl Sarah Jacobs, and a nurse who was hired by newspapers to watch her, but Donoghue also wanted to explore the role of nurses in society. Even though Lib is highly qualified, her observations are constantly doubted and ignored by a committee of Irish Catholic men, who are so invested in the idea of a miracle that they ignore her expertise.

“Nurses are wonderfully liminal figures anyway, in that they’re obviously so important to their cases, but they’re often treated as if they’re nobody,” says Donoghue. “It’s a much disrespected profession and during Covid it became clear to us how crucial they and other frontline healthcare workers are, risking their lives. So it’s a really unique relationship, nurse and patient.

The Wonder. (L to R) Josie Walker as Sister Michael, Toby Jones as Dr McBrearty, Kíla Lord Cassidy as Anna O’Donnell, Niamh Algar as Kitty O’Donnell, Florence Pugh as Lib Wright in The Wonder. Cr. Aidan Monaghan/Netflix © 2022

“And because the newspapers had paid for the nurse in the case of Sarah Jacob, I wanted a journalist in the story as well, to have a person whose role is to watch and write about it – but not help. I wanted to explore the ethics of people to watch.”

As director, Sebastian Lelio leans into these ideas of the gaze and complicity. The Wonder opens and closes with images of a film set and a direct address to the viewer, who is asked to invest themselves in the story, and then to reflect on their role in it. For Lelio, this intriguing choice not only emphasises the themes of storytelling from Donoghue’s novel, but also feels like an important exercise in self-awareness and self-reflection.

“The historical context is so painful,” he notes. “The nurse is hired to watch, not intervene, the journalist is there to analyse. But the girl keeps deteriorating, and to also explain the game the film is playing with the viewer, the film is asking the viewer to be active: ‘How long are you going to sit here and watch?’

“As Lib says so beautifully in the novel, this is not a philosophical debate, a girl’s life is in the balance, and love requires some action, some intervention. And that’s what the film is also asking the viewer, to be in that place, not to be passive but active and aware. That’s one of the main things I loved from the novel – the difference between analysing and intervening, and the bravery and high price that requires.”

Set in post-Famine Ireland and addressing how Catholicism and colonisation has shaped the country, it may seem like an odd choice for a Latin American director, but growing up in Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Lelio felt that even as an outsider, he had some insights into the dynamics at play.

“I did grow up in the south of Chile during a very macho dictatorship in a very Catholic country, inherited by the Spanish,” he reflects. “Of course, I needed to be educated about the cultural specifics of 1860s rural, post-Famine Ireland. But underneath that, the power dynamics that allowed those things to happen, I thought I understood them.

“It reminded me of my country, of my childhood because basically, they belong to the same branch, the same story – you could call it patriarchy, I don’t know, it can take many names. But it’s an interpretation of reality that permits lots of things to happen.”

Lelio’s experience growing up under a dictatorship has always informed his interest in the stories he wishes to explore, and he found The Wonder’s exploration of opposing belief systems to be fascinating.

“In the film, we have one understanding of reality or way of relating with reality which, in this case, is the Catholic angle or – respectfully - story,” he says. “The existence or non-existence of God is beyond my jurisdiction and is not what interests me here. But it is faith. Then we have another relationship with reality which is Lib’s, which is a scientific approach.

The Wonder. (L to R) Kila Lord Cassidy as Anna O'Donnell, Tom Burke as Will Byrne, Florence Pugh as Lib Wright in The Wonder. Cr. Aidan Monaghan/Netflix © 2022

“That one, because it is science, holds in its heart doubt, question and elasticity, because it understands that there is no fixed truth, there is only a truth that is in flux. This is opposed to rigid positions, in this case what the community represents and especially the committee of men, who think that they have found the truth and are unwilling to move from that position, which is the definition of fanaticism.

“So the collision between intellectual and spiritual elasticity and fanaticism was one of the things that sounded so prescient to me. That collision is what we are going through globally today. Everything is a narrative war, in The Wonder and today. It is a story about which will rule.”

The film sits well with Lelio’s film Disobedience, which also shows the struggle within a specific religion, in that case the struggle of a gay woman within Orthodox Judaism. His approach is always sensitive and empathetic, never attacking belief systems but exploring their beauty, appeal and limitations.

He also notably champions the stories of marginalised communities – gay women in Disobedience, a trans woman in A Fantastic Woman, an older woman in Gloria Bell.

“Stories where there are no villains, just life’s complexity, are very compelling to me,” he says. “I saw that in Emma’s novel. But I also am invested in characters who are trapped in narratives that they have inherited, and maybe they have never stepped out of that narrative enough, to see the preconceptions that are so structural that they become invisible.

“This generates so much compassion in me. In a certain way, all those characters show the struggle between the mandate of the community – which usually means men – versus individual freedom. Another way to put it is that the community is saying, ‘Here are the limits of what is possible, morally, ethically, behaviourally etc’, and these characters are saying, ‘No. Here is what is possible. I can be a 60-year-old woman and dance alone on a dancefloor, or I can honour the identity that inhabits in me and be a woman, or love who I love.’

“It’s a theme that generates a big emotional reaction, it moves me, but intellectually it is also rich territory and resonates with the world today.”

The film is financed by Netflix and will undoubtedly have its profile elevated by Florence Pugh, now one of the world’s most beloved young actresses, both for her work in films like The Falling, Lady Macbeth, Midsommar and Black Widow – and also for her dignified handling of the undignified drama surrounding Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. Pugh attended the premiere of the film in The Lighthouse in Dublin, telling Hot Press that she couldn’t resist the complex role of Lib.

“I’ve always been drawn to dark stories, especially around women who are constantly pushing back,” she says. “I keep on doing it, so I obviously love it! I’m really attracted to this image of women constantly needing to prove themselves. Up until not that long after the date of this film, women weren’t their own property.
“So to play a character who had all the qualifications, who has been hired to come over and help this village, but she’s still battling the voices of men – it was a really interesting turn for me.”

The Wonder premiere at The Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin. Wednesday 26th of October 2022. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Pugh was also effusive about working with 13-year-old Kíla Cassidy, whose mother Elaine Cassidy actually plays Anna’s mother.

“It was so easy,” Pugh said about working with the young actress. “The whole film relies on the relationship between those two characters and the two actors. I have to be, at times very loving with her but also very physical with her, so the trust and care and safety between all of us on set had to be super, super high. I love the fact that I was able to work with her family so closely as well, it made everything feel very fluid and very safe.”

Lelio returns the compliment to Pugh.

“Florence has a genuine integrity as a person,” he enthuses, “and that transmutes to the role. Also, she has great energy and is very enthusiastic. We were telling quite a dark story so to lead a film, not just as an actress, is about the energy you bring to set and she was extremely generous. She supplied us all with sourdough doughnuts and knew everyone’s names. She was genuine, and then technically, her excellency is contagious.

“Everyone is better, just because she’s there. That is talent. And she offers different nuances and insights. I respect her immensely.”

• The Wonder is on Netflix now.

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