Wednesday 11 October 2023

The Wonder (2022 Sebastian Lelio & co-scr)

It was on Netflix, fortunately.

The film begins in a strange way on the movie set where it was made, as though to emphasize the film's unreality. It's based on a novel by Emma Donaghue who wrote 'Room', and adapted by her, Lelio and Alice Birch. It's the 1860s and in Ireland, an English nurse, Florence Pugh, has been sent to observe the case of a young girl who it appears has not eaten for four months. She (Pugh) has demons of her own, and befriends a skeptical journalist, Tom Burke.

The idea of not eating after the Great Famine, in which an estimated million died, is significant.

The girl is Kila Lord Cassidy and her mum is played by her mum, Elaine Cassidy, with Niamh Algar her older sister. The local council of idiots is made up of Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Dermot Crowley, Brian F O'Byrne and someone else. With David Wilmot.

It's rather beautifully filmed - by female DP Ari Wegner - in what looks like natural light, though we realise these must be strong lamps providing 'daylight' to the room (and they also used 'flicker boxes' on candles and fires), and Matthew Herbert's music is out of this world. Lelio has a way of slowly tracking in on his subjects. Kila was only allowed to be on set for three hours a day, so they understandably had to shoot around her.

I wasn't sure at all where it was going, but thought it rather successful in many ways. Pugh is extraordinary again.






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