#TIFF22: “THE WONDER”

By Nicholas Porteous

Florence Pugh, as a solemn English nurse, visits a hyper-religious Irish village to watch over a child who claims to have survived four months without food–worshipped as a miracle. Pugh‘s rational approach clashes with the deep-seated beliefs of the community, and the life of the child hangs in the balance.

Left, right and center, people were checking their phones throughout this Movie. While I find that behaviour super lame–ESPECIALLY during a Festival film, it is indicative of just how restless my audience was. To be fair, this is a pretty dry, dreary period piece with minimal dialogue and lots of long walks through vast fields. Visually, it has a lot of nice texture to it. The strange choral score is as refreshing as it is haunting. The performances are good across the board, but they’re also not particularly demanding–mostly requiring a lot of restraint.

The Wonder is all about belief, and how a collective, communal belief can seem as real as any fact. It establishes this theme by opening with a fourth wall-breaking view of the soundstage the Movie is being filmed on, and an extremely meta voiceover explaining we’re watching a movie filled with Actors who deeply believe in the story they’re telling. I think the Movie is trying to say we all believe in things that aren’t necessarily proveable or scientific, and this movie is one of those things. It’s a flimsy metaphor, because I don’t know anyone who literally believes movies are real to the same extent that these people believe a child can survive without food. Moreover, without spoiling anything, I found the ending of this particular Movie preposterous. And the more I think about it, the more toxic I find its message as it relates to the present. I also don’t find these ideas narratively or cinematically satisfying at all, particularly as a means of justifying an absurd ending.

THE WONDER screens at TIFF ’22 as follows:

Tues, Sep 13 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 6:45pm

Wed, Sep 14 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 2:00pm

Thu, Sep 15 IN-PERSONRoyal Alexandra Theatre 8:30pm