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“Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder is an engrossing new gothic mystery that gives Florence Pugh the chance to turn in one of her best performances in years.”
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Pros
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Florence Pugh’s commanding efficiency Killa Lord Cassidy’s breakout supporting flip An atmospheric, gothic temper
Cons
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A repetitive second act Several thinly sketched supporting characters A barely rushed finale
In its excellent first scene, The Wonder tells us precisely what it’s. The new movie from Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman director Sebastián Lelio opens on a modern-day soundstage. “This is the beginning. The beginning of a film called The Wonder,” an unseen girl tells us. “The people you are about to meet, the characters, believe in their stories with complete devotion. We are nothing without stories. And so we invite you to believe in this one.” By the time Lelio’s digital camera has completed its affected person opening motion, we’re now not on a soundstage, however on a Victorian-era ship sure for Ireland.
We know that the ship shouldn’t be actual. We know that the cabin we’re seeing is nothing greater than a set and that the lady on the heart of it’s not an English nurse named Lib Wright, however Florence Pugh, one of the recognizable stars on the earth. The Wonder is aware of that we all know this. It is aware of that we all know the reality of what we’re seeing in the identical method that we all know that Michael Corleone shouldn’t be an actual particular person, however a personality performed by Al Pacino. The Wonder, in different phrases, is aware of that each one tales are lies—scripted movies most of all.
They’re lies that we select, at our personal discretion, to consider. The movie’s insistence on acknowledging this in its first scene shouldn’t be solely a daring, attention-grabbing inventive resolution, nevertheless it proves to be the right opening word for a film that’s about tales and, particularly, the methods by which they’ll save or kill us relying on which we select to consider. Some lies, in any case, are deadlier than others.
Aidan Monaghan/Netflix
Based on a 2016 novel of the identical title by Emma Donoghue, The Wonder follows Pugh’s Lib as she makes her journey to a post-famine Ireland with the intention to participate in a mysterious new job. Once she arrives, Pugh’s former wartime nurse is shocked to find that she has not been summoned to deal with a sick affected person, however to look at an area “miracle.” The miracle in query seems to be Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy), a younger, non secular woman within the midst of a quick that has been ongoing for months.
Lib’s project is to watch Anna and her household with the intention to be sure that she shouldn’t be secretly being fed or in any method faking her personal, seemingly ineffective interval of hunger. Despite initially shrugging off Anna and her fellow villagers’ claims, although, Lib rapidly begins to query each herself and her beliefs after spending a number of days with the O’Donnells. Unfortunately, Lib’s rising attachment to Anna not solely ends in a number of previous traumas coming again to hang-out her, but in addition places her in direct opposition to the beliefs and strategies of lots of the Irish villagers she’s discovered herself surrounded by.
Over the course of its brisk 103-minute runtime, The Wonder makes use of Lib’s relationship with Cassidy’s Anna to discover themes of trauma, non secular fanaticism, dying, and rebirth. While the movie sometimes struggles in its second half to iron out the inherently repetitive nature of Lib’s project, The Wonder largely succeeds at remodeling its story of crippling guilt and love into an engrossing and compelling gothic thriller. That’s due in no small half to the work carried out by its well-rounded forged and, specifically, its formidable two leads.
Aidan Monaghan/Netflix
Pugh supplies a powerful, empathetic anchor to The Wonder as its central nurse. Her character’s intense emotional scars and unwavering need to save lots of her sufferers from the horrors of the world additionally give Pugh the possibility to show in one in every of her strongest performances thus far — if not her finest since 2016’s Lady Macbeth. Opposite her, Cassidy provides a quietly commanding breakout efficiency as Anna, the faith-driven woman who has already discovered herself swept up in a maelstrom of religious and emotional darkness by the point The Wonder begins.
The Netflix movie goes out of its solution to visually replicate the duality of despair and hope current in each of its lead performances. Working with cinematographer Ari Wegner, Lelio turns Anna’s attic, the place Pugh’s Lib spends a lot of The Wonder, into an expansive, shadowy house. By usually relying solely on the pale, washed-out mild that pours in via the home windows of the O’Donnells’ house to mild Anna’s attic, Lelio and Wagner are in a position to create frames by which Pugh and Cassidy are standing in each mild and darkness. on the similar time.
Outside of its central homestead, the pale grey skies and muddy, inexperienced fields of Ireland solely assist The Wonder promote its gothic temper. Recurring photos of pricked thumbs and Wegner’s often regular, drawn-out digital camera actions additionally create an added sense of dread inside the movie, one which Lelio additional heightens by filling a few of The Wonder’s quieter moments with looped reprisals of Anna’s day by day, whispered prayers.
All of those visible and sonic motifs construct, at the side of the depth of Pugh and Cassidy’s performances, to a 3rd act that’s usually cathartic and terrifying in equal measure. The movie’s final conclusion might, on the floor, appear far too clear for a movie as morally and emotionally murky as The Wonder. However, there’s a darkish, bittersweet fact on the coronary heart of The Wonder’s story, one which reminds us that even our most sacred tales should generally be left behind to ensure that new ones to be advised.
The Wonder premieres Wednesday, November 16 on Netflix.
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