The Wonder Review

Florence Pugh has been catapulted to the very top and shows no signs of slowing down. Her work over the last few years has led to something as strong and independently led as The Wonder. Hot streaks are harder now than ever, and even with the fumblings of Don’t Worry Darling and the dullness of Black Widow, Pugh has struck through as the next great star. Hollywood stars are not dead, people just look in the wrong places. Nobody else can crack through Puss in Boots sequels, an independent Irish drama stuffed full of British screen legends and Oppenheimer all in the span of a year or so. This Sebastián Lelio feature has all the makings of what could have been an Ammonite-like subject, but the period piece pushes forward. 

Lingering, festering wounds are the aim of The Wonder. Its fourth wall break beginnings are smug and are littered in with the equivalent potential and response as the Nicole Kidman AMC Theatres advertisement. Ominous tones manage to survive that out-of-place introduction, but the stilted intro feels no better than the silence it could have been replaced by. Pugh’s portrayal of Lib Wright depends on the Irish midlands setting and the dedication Lelio presents to the anomalies of that place. Everyone knows everyone in the eerie charms and fast-paced build of The Wicker Man concepts and the strangled thoughts of committees and ghastly, ghostly non-diegetic sounds. Overindulgence is the trouble for The Wonder, which extracts strangeness and stubbornness far too often. 

Pugh once more is an articulate and necessary draw, but the cold exhibition that comes from the island of Ireland is ill-established. Necessary medical advice and the brutality of it should prove shocking compared to the contemporary miracles of modern medicine but comes off as tepid attempts at wowing the audience into the community values Lelio attempts to show. His direction takes precedence as they attempt to convey rebirth and strife in the eyes of a greater being. No better place for it than the beautiful scenery and intimate settings of Ireland. But enlisting Toby Jones and bringing in fellow bright spark Tom Burke does little to convey the harsher elements of the sensations, the machinations, that should come from a paranormal-like piece. It is larger than life and explanation yet feels so horribly yawning. 

Initially stunning and tense scenes lose their way as Lelio bites off more than he can chew. The Wonder is articulate enough to know where it wants its story to go but has no care for the senses. Kíla Lord Cassidy’s portrayal of Anna is solid work that piles on the continued rise and rise of Pugh. The Wonder is not a stumbling block for either, if anything they are the best part of the piece and their back-and-forth work here is remarkably strong at times. Lelio should have focused harder on that, the eerie appeals of some Christopher Lee-like community led by freakish proclamations are right on the cusp of interesting, but never cements itself as such. Eeriness is the bedfellow of isolation, but the bloodied hands of Wright are not enough to carry all The Wonder and burdens.