THE WONDER

Despite a wonderful sense of mood, an excellent premise and faultless casting, The Wonder never truly grows on you.

There is a lot of cinematic pedigree in The Wonder, from Oscar- nominated writer Emma Donoghue to Sebastián Lelio, who won an Academy Award for A Fantastic Woman, a film I adore. And yet, despite a wonderful sense of mood, an excellent premise and faultless casting, The Wonder never truly grows on you.

It's not easy to pinpoint why exactly the picture, which centres around a 19th century English nurse who is summoned to Ireland to prove (or disprove) that an 11-year-old girl has miraculously gone four months without eating, is such a middling affair, but the fact that the central mystery is too easily resolved and the catholic stranglehold on Irish society is underdeveloped certainly play a part.

Another misfire is Lelio's odd decision to break the fourth wall from time to time, which undermines the period detail that arguably is The Wonder's biggest asset.

So while there are certainly worse ways to spend 100 minutes on Netflix, it is a shame that a film with this kind of potential doesn't delve deeper into its fascinating underlying themes.

release: 2022

director: Sebastián Lelio

starring: Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Niamh Algar, Elaine Cassidy