One supposes we’re not helping by running this piece so late—lost in the woods of the end-of-year madness, apologies—but Oscar-winning Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio’s latest drama “The Wonder” is one of the most overlooked films of the year. Currently available on Netflix, in fact, while we move towards the holiday break, if you’re looking to catch up on the profoundly underrated films of 2022—a feature will be running in the new year—Lelio’s “The Wonder” is the perfect catch-up film. Lelio is, of course, known for “Gloria” (2013), “Disobedience” with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams (2017), and “A Fantastic Woman,” which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018.
‘The Wonder’ Review: Florence Pugh Watches Over A Miracle Or Does She? [Telluride]
Debuting at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this year and starring actor of the moment Florence Pugh, “The Wonder” on the surface, is a quiet, somewhat abstract film, which is seemingly perhaps why it was overlooked upon its November release on Netflix, and its one-week theatrical release (and or, most people are just making time for sure-fire Oscar contenders). But it’s deeply fascinating and mysterious, full of so much nuanced emotional complexity and identity-challenging notions with so much to offer.
Based on the book by Emma Donoghue, writer of “Room,” “The Wonder” is the tale of a young Irish girl, Anna O’Donnell (breakthrough newcomer (Kíla Lord Cassidy), whose Catholic family claim she has eaten nothing since her eleventh birthday… four months ago. Haunted by the mistakes of her past, a nurse (Florence Pugh) travels from England to this remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate the young girl’s supposedly miraculous fast. Her main job is to observe in a movie about different points of observation.
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Featuring a terrific cast Tom Burke (“Mank”), Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones, and character actors Niamh Algar, Elaine Cassidy, Dermot Crowley, Brían F. O’Byrne, David Wilmot, Ruth Bradley, Caolán Byrne, and Josie Walker, “The Wonder” is a mystical meditation on belief, storytelling, the stories we tell, and the stories we tell ourselves. It also questions the fact vs. fiction in storytelling, the delusions those stories can hold, and how myths and legends can overcome stories when we as a community choose to believe more convenient tales than the reality in front of ourselves. There’s also a kind of love story at its center, a story about family, loyalty, neglect, caretaking, religious fanaticism that blinds society, and so much more (one could even call it a kind of discreet, delicate examination of our polarized society)
There’s also a haunting, numinous quality to the film that’s rapturous. Experimental electronic musician Matthew Herbert creates an ethereal spooky soundtrack to the movie that is one of the best of the year, and “The Power Of The Dog” cinematographer Ari Wegner’s insular interior photography juxtaposed by the breathtaking exterior vistas of windy, cold Ireland is just stunning to behold. Within all that is Lelio’s sharp eye, his extraordinary knack for subtle nuances in storytelling and performance, and crafting a bewitching film with so much human and socio-political texture that speaks to our current time too. Do yourself a favor and give yourself over to “The Wonder” and watch it over the break now (turn off that phone, turn off the lights and pay attention too; it’s that kind of meticulous film). With apologies to Lelio for the tardiness, here’s our conversation from late November.
I love this mysterious, intriguing film; it has so much to say and so much on its mind, spiritually, emotionally, and politically. Tell me all about it and what struck a chord in you about the book that made you think it could be a movie.
When I read “The Wonder, I was trapped in it. My first connection was with the two women at the story’s center— the nurse and the young girl. I felt that link; that relationship was unique and very moving. So, at first, it was my emotional connection with the story, especially the journey that the nurse, Florence’s character, has to go through. Her character is the rationalist that faces this community where there is a lot of religious fervor or fanaticism even and progressively falls in love maternally with the girl.
And she uses reason to uncover whatever is going on in this situation— whether there is a hoax or not. But by the time she understands the mechanics with which the girl is being kept alive, the story reveals why the girl is making the sacrifice, and the reasons are so devastating that the nurse is trapped emotionally. Because by then, she’s already deeply connected to a girl, and she’s facing a moral dilemma. Does she have the right to intervene at this point?
And so the fact that her solution somehow transcends reason— it’s really what captured me because she is a scientist, someone who acts out of logic. Therefore, she has elasticity and adaptability— as opposed to many of the community that has immovable truths and operate from that position, which is the definition of fanaticism.
Indeed!
Florence’s character is a woman capable of— or that discovers that— she is capable of responding to life with an act full of contradiction but also full of life. And that journey was a beautiful one to portray in a film. And then, conceptually, I thought it was great to explore the power of fiction, both in our lives, stories we need, and because we tell ourselves stories. We tell ourselves about ourselves, or there are stories that we inherit or co-create. And religion and ideology— how they become political power and how those dynamics operate within society. Hopefully, ultimately it’s about the power of fiction in cinema too. So, yeah, it was a very rich territory. So, I had to say yes to this movie.
Ha, yes, you’re articulating precisely what I love about this movie. And I love the marriage of all these conceptual, emotional, and spiritual ideas and how they all fit together. The Bible is essentially a big fictional fable anyhow, and storytelling in itself is an act of faith because we have to suspend our disbelief, which is a crucial element to experiencing cinema too. So it feels like you’re commenting on storytelling while telling your story.
Well, thank you. And yes, it has always been said that the mechanisms of believing that cinema can trigger and activate when it’s powerful are very similar or the same ones that we use to believe in whatever we believe. So there is a deep relationship between cinema and faith.
And in a story about the power of fiction in our lives and societies, I wanted to find a way for the film itself, as an object, to be part of the problem. And for the viewer as someone interacting with that fictional mechanism to be actively participating. To be aware that they were going to be exposed to the power of fiction and they were going to observe characters deeply believing in their stories, most of them by default, stories by default or inherited stories.
And then also observing some characters that have the audacity to confront the mandate of the community and come up with the wrong chosen story, which is something that has always interested me thematically. In a certain way, “A Fantastic Woman” is also about that. Right. So, the breathing rhythm that the film has—you are watching a movie, and then you will forget that, that you’re watching a film, and then you’re kindly reminded that you were believing just like the characters were believing. I thought all was important to depict, and especially because I think what’s very 2022 about the film is precisely that. We’re in a post-factual era, where the main casualty is what’s real or the truth. What we believe in, it’s essential, and it’s clearly political. In the era of Twitter, who are you believing in? What are you believing in? Do you believe in something you inherited, or have you really thought about it? And so I think it’s a way of saying to the viewer, I know you are responsible for what you are believing. It’s saying, please be aware, don’t just fall asleep in the film’s seduction. Have an active and yet hopefully pleasurable participation in the whole game.
Yes, I love the echoes of how we measure and value truth these days, which has become obliterated in many ways. I really responded to the themes of reason versus spirituality or versus dogma. And like you said, Florence’s character also goes through her own belief system change, too, right? She’s ideologically tethered to science, but through empathy, her belief system, like a heart from a parent with a new child, grows to hold more.
Exactly. It’s the collision between reason and “magical thinking” and or science and religion. But also, ultimately, and this is what’s really, I would say, contemporary about the story and something loved in the novel; it’s a film about rigidity, fanaticism versus elasticity, and adaptability. That’s very much now, and today, I think. Will we learn to live together with all our visions and beliefs, and will we find a way to coexist? Or is it going to be about imposing whatever we believe upon others, which is such a crazy path [laughs]. In a certain way, what I admire about Florence’s character is precisely probably because she has a scientifically minded attitude. But she’s open to change, to adapt to, you know, to exercise her intellectual elasticity. She’s not operating from a rigid position, which I connect the most with and what Florence interprets so beautifully.
Tell me about working with her. I feel like this performance is very delicate, understated, and very internalized. What you’re explaining is that the rigidity to elasticity mirrors her emotional journey and her initial judgments of this community.
Absolutely. She comes almost like a strong defender of that belief system Which is science, which is also a way of reading reality. She goes from that point too, having to step out of that comfort zone and operate beyond that, from empathy, maybe even love, you know? Because she really listened to the girl, she really saw her, as opposed to the other members of the community that is somehow using the case of the girl for their own benefits and for their own little portions of power within that community. And what is really infuriating— and it’s also very much the case these days— is that the victim, in this case, is the only one that doesn’t matter.
Yes, it taps into our collective indignation too about everything.
It’s really only about them, the men of the community, and the only real casualty is truth and the girl herself. So what Florence’s character sees, and what she connects with what’s real there and, and responding to that…working with Florence was, was a luxury. She carries the film with such grace. You have to follow her process; she’s thinking about connecting the dots, and I think her thoughts are palpable and, and that’s a testament to her talent.
Absolutely. It’s such a pleasure to talk to you about this; it’s all as rich as the film itself. I feel like you two are so simpatico in this; maybe some actors may not understand the text so deeply. Do you know what you’re doing next? Because I feel like this could be a beginning of a beautiful working relationship between you too.
I would love to work with Florence again, but I don’t know which film, from the ones I’m preparing now, will happen next. So, it would be a little irresponsible for me to do because I’m just in that moment where I’m trying to understand which project is the one that will happen.
You were going to do “The Bride” with Scarlet Johansen, which sounded sci-fi-ish. Will that happen at some point?
Yes. That’s still under development and part of the projects that are in the mix right now. But I don’t know when it will happen.
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My final question, as I mentioned when we began, I’m Chilean, and you’re Chilean, but I lived outside my culture for most of my life, so I understand it more remotely. But of all the art coming out of Chile, especially the amazing Chilean cinema that’s happening right now, it’s always so emotional—passionate Latin American people—but always so political, and not always just capital P political, but in the Toni Morrison, “All good art is political!” sense which I always take to mean human and considering the world around us. I feel like a lot of that ideas are embedded in Chilean art. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I think that’s fair. We are in the middle of talking about stories and collective stories and stories we need that have the capacity to cohesion. And in Chile, we are in the process of changing our constitution, which is literally a process of collective writing, writing a new story, a new text that is capable of unifying. Because we are going through such a process of change as a society, which comes from a long troubled history, as you know, it’s a period in Chilean history where it’s impossible not to connect with the political dimension of the country and the work. I personally think that films should be complex animals. They can be spectacles, but at the same time, they always have a political dimension. And that’s the beauty of it. You’re watching something so complete that you can analyze it from the aesthetical angle behind it. That complexity is beautiful. And maybe being Chilean, and all the country went through, facilitates that vibe somehow.
“The Wonder” is streaming on Netflix now, and you should surrender to that film as soon as possible.