Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Haunted by her past, a nurse travels from England to a remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate a young girl's supposedly miraculous fast.
The Wonder is elevated by Florence Pugh's commanding, nuanced performance and Ari Wegner's beautifully austere cinematography, capturing the bleakness of rural 19th-century Ireland with real atmospheric power. The plot is methodically paced and thematically rich — examining faith, grief, and the exploitation of women — but occasionally feels inert and withholding to a fault. The self-aware framing device (breaking the fourth wall) adds a layer of novelty but also feels somewhat disconnected from the otherwise grounded narrative. The ending, while conceptually bold, risks feeling abrupt and emotionally unsatisfying, undermining the tension carefully built throughout.