The First Images from 'The Wonder' Promise An Eerie Historical Tale
Netflix has announced an official premiere date for buzzy period drama The Wonder, a psychological thriller about the tension between science and faith and what happens when desperate people are primed to believe in miracles.
The film stars Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh, probably best known for her role as Yelena Belova in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, she has starred in projects as diverse and varied as Midsommar, Little Women, Lady Macbeth, and Don't Worry Darling. It's directed by Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio, who took home Best Foreign Language Film of the Year for A Fantastic Woman in 2018.
Based on the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue (Room, Haven), The Wonder aims to explore the story of the infamous nineteenth-century "fasting girls," young women who supposedly stopped eating for months or even years at a time without dying or even suffering significant ill health effects. In addition to refusing food, fasting girls often claimed to have particular religious or other near-magical powers. (Several Catholic saints during the Middle Ages were said to be able to survive without nourishment, including Catherine of Siena and Lidwina of Schiedam, and these acts were categorized as miracles and a sign of holiness at the time.)
