Filmmaker Sebastián Lelio came to acclaim making movie about women contending with the modern world: 2013's Gloria and its English-language remake, 2018's Gloria Bell, both following their titular middle-aged divorcées; 2017's Disobedience, about a woman who returns to her Orthodox Jewish community; and the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman, which stars Daniela Vega as a trans woman grappling with the death of her lover.
His latest, The Wonder, is a change of pace then, set in the year 1862 and starring Florence Pugh (an Oscar nominee for Little Women) as English nurse Lib Wright. Called to Irish Midlands to conduct a 15-day examination, Lib meets an 11-year-old girl who claims to have not eaten in four months but instead survives on "manna from heaven." In addition to Pugh's Lib, a nun has been called in — one represents science and the other religion.
Screenwriter Alice Birch (who previously penned Pugh's breakout, 2016's Lady Macbeth) and Lelio co-wrote the screenplay, adapting author Emma Donoghue's novel of the same name. (Donoghue herself is an Oscar nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay for 2016's Room.) The cast also includes newcomer Kíla Lord Cassidy as the young girl, Anna, alongside Tom Burke, Toby Jones, and Oscar nominee Ciarán Hinds.
The Wonder premiered during this year's Telluride Film Festival and opens in select theaters on Nov. 2, before streaming on Netflix on Nov. 16. Watch the trailer below.
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