Not for the first time this year, she’s the standout in a film that, given the remarkable personnel involved, really ought to pack a greater punch. Pugh’s emblematic, muddy-hemmed blue dress - designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux - marks her out against the windswept exteriors. Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, Emma Donoghues The Wonder - inspired by numerous cases of. The bookending of the film with a contemporary studio setting and thoughts about storytelling falls a bit flat, as does the repeated use of a bird-in-cage thaumatrope.Īri Wegner’s cinematography finds striking tableaux against a backdrop that between the dramatic outdoors and the snotty interiors is almost overpoweringly green. A chilling novel from the bestselling author of Room. He’s helped by a stellar cast who bring nuance to characters that - with lesser actors and writing - could have played like 19th century cartoons from Punch Magazine.

It requires all of the director’s not inconsiderable skill to make these elements work. Every plot progression and twist - from the big reveal to the ludicrous denouement - seems designed to make the average telenovela look like The Bicycle Thieves. Unless you are absolutely fine with weapons-grade melodrama, this is possibly not the movie for you. Set in post-famine Ireland, the novel follows English nurse Elizabeth Wright as she. Still, the mystery of the starving child remains. The Wonder is a 2016 novel by Irish-Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue.

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