Netflix has unveiled the first look photos of Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh’s upcoming psychological thriller ‘The Wonder’ and they are quite intriguing. Helmed by Oscar win filmmaker Sebastian Lelio, ‘The Wonder’ is based on the 2016 eponymous novel by Emma Donoghue (Room) and is a tale of faith, kindness and the unbearable burden of grief.
Coming this fall, ‘The Wonder’ is a gothic drama with Pugh at the center of the mysterious story of the Irish “fasting girls,” a 19th-century phenomenon that saw young women stop eating but miraculously survive.
In the film, Pugh plays Lib Wright, a nurse sent to meet with one of these fasting girls, Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy). Along with journalist Will Burn (The Souvenir’s Tom Burke), Lib is tasked with observing the young woman over the course of two weeks and determining whether or not her food-deprived survival is a hoax.
As she heads to the Irish Midlands alongside curious tourists and pilgrims, Lib begins to realize there’s more to the case than meets the eye. Is Anna’s fasting a miracle from heaven or something more sinister?
Directed by Sebastián Lelio, who won the Academy Award for ‘A Fantastic Woman’, script for ‘The Wonder’ is written by Donoghue along with Alice Birch (‘Normal People’). In addition to Pugh, Cassidy and Burke, the film also stars Niamh Algar, Elaine Cassidy, Toby Jones, Dermot Crowley, Brían F. O’Byrne and Ciarán Hinds.
‘The Wonder’ is produced by Ed Guiney, Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Andrew Lowe. The production companies behind the film are Element Pictures, House Productions, Screen Ireland and Access Entertainment. ‘The Wonder’ will release in select theatres on 2nd November and then premiere on Netflix on 16th November, 2022.