The Wonder (2022)

Directed by Sebastián Lelio. Starring Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Elaine Cassidy, Niamh Algar, Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones, Dermot Crowley, Brían F. O’Byrne, David Wilmot, Josie Walker, Ruth Bradley, Caolán Byrne. [R]

You don’t open a period piece the way Sebastián Lelio and company do here and expect to get away with it by being modest or conventional afterward. Pity, then, that the storytelling, themes and motifs falter as the movie crawls its way to the preposterous conclusion. Pugh’s English nurse is sent to rural Ireland in the 1860s to assist in the investigation of a child who has miraculously survived for months while fasting, claiming to get by on the sustenance of “manna from heaven”. Wants to be a challenge to faith, I suspect, but ends up being more of an affront to logic; the otherworldly influence and depth to character and back story never germinate into compelling drama, and as rounded as some of the acting is (Pugh in particular), they’re stubbornly trapped in each of their cloistered, preordained lanes. High-minded and ambitious, to be sure, but setting and atmosphere trump involvement nearly every step of the way; Matthew Herbert’s unorthodox, percussive-loop-and-chirpy-whoop score effectively complements the eerie mood…but those high, spectral wails are an overwrought touch. Written by the director, Alice Birch, and Emma Donoghue, from the latter’s 2016 novel.

46/100