Sorrow is God's spade

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#8 : The Wonder 

Haunting adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s story of divine possession, with Florence Pugh as a nurse who is sent to a rural Irish village to investigate a young girl who appears to be perfectly healthy despite not having eaten for months.

I've heard this is good and I've yet to see anything that hasn't been improved by the presence of Florence Pugh, so I'm quite looking forward to it - although I doubt I'd have got round to watching it under any other circumstances.

It starts very interestingly for a film set in rural Ireland in the 1800s - we're panning round a very modern space, which it soon becomes clear is a sound stage because the inside of an old Irish cottage comes into view which makes for a stark contrast.  And I suspect the message we're supposed to take from this is that nothing is what it initially seems - but let's see shall we.

We then start on the story with a nurse, Elizabeth Wright (Florence Pugh) who has been called over to Ireland to watch an 11 year old, Anna O'Connell (Kíla Lord Cassidy) who allegedly hasn't eaten in four months, with a view to establishing the truth of the situation.  Obviously, Elizabeth doesn't believe any miracle is occurring but Anna seems guileless and there's no obvious cheating going on.  The other person on the watch is a nun who obviously has different motivations and beliefs and additionally there are factions in the village who like the interest that Anna brings and others who would like the whole thing to go away.  And, of course, as time goes on it becomes clear that Elizabeth doesn't have the straightforward backstory that would make her job much easier for her - and no, I'm not going to give you any clues as to what was going on.  

The film makes some interesting points on being confronted by things you don't or can't believe in and how you might react.  It's also intriguing as to how it's going to end - it does a good job of ensuring that enough progress is made to keep you engaged and guessing.  And when things become clearer as what's going on, there's some very effective psychological horror elements introduced which had me quite spellbound (and appalled) - and raised some interesting points on being confronted by things you understand but can't accept.  But, to its credit and my surprise, the film finds a way to resolve the story in a very pleasing manner - I really liked the way things panned out.

Florence is, as expected, excellent in this - she gets to do some full-on acting, displaying proper emotions and everything.  And Kila more than holds her own against her - it's not her acting debut but I suspect it's a bit of step up from what she's previously done.  Tom Burke does a good enough job when making his third appearance on the list this year - a fine effort by the lad, although you'd struggle to say he was massively central to any of them.  I also thought Niamh Algar did a good job as Anna's mum - I knew I recognised her from somewhere but had to use Wikipedia to remind myself she was in Censor.  There's also a fine selection of older male actors on the committee organising the watch who are Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Dermot Crowley, Brian O'Byrne and David Wilmot - all of whom you recognise their faces without necessarily recognising their names.

It is, without a doubt, a film set in rural Ireland - they do a good job in making it realistic enough to convince me it was accurate (lots of religious iconography and poverty, some digging for peat, etc).  There's obviously plenty of gorgeous scenery to work with and both the internal and external shots are all very well set-up and lit - the film has a very studied artistic feel to it (I was reminded of Portrait Of A Woman On Fire, although the subject matter is very different).  All in all, there's a lot to admire here so I'm going to give the director Sebastián Lelio a name check - I'm sure that's going to make his day!

I really liked this - it felt like a proper grown-up film which has been made with full consideration to both the aesthetic and plot, with it looking beautiful and coming to a very satisfying conclusion despite the high-concept central idea.  And it's also well acted and poses some interesting questions - exactly what a film should be imho.  It's a strong recommendation from me for a film you may well have missed so go and check it out - at time of writing it's available to stream on both Netflix and Sky and to rent in all the usual locations.

#9 - Errr.  Yeah.  That.
#7 - Utterly, utterly bonkers