The word around the campfire is that Florence Pugh, currently grappling with a reputation as an arch-backed sorehead and something of an Attitude Mama because of her allegedly chilly and contentious relationship with Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde, is quite good in a non-showy way in Sebastián Lelio‘s The Wonder (Netflix), which will have its first domestic peek-out at Telluride.
Described last year as a “psychological thriller,” The Wonder is an adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s same-titled 2016 novel.
Synopsis: “Set in southern Ireland in 1859 over a period of two weeks, Lib Wright (Pugh) is a widow and a nurse — trained by Florence Nightingale, a veteran of the Crimean War. Wright travels to Ireland to observe 11 year old Anna O’Donnell, who has not eaten in four months. A local committee wants to know if this is a hoax or divine intervention, as Anna’s family claims. The child reports that she receives manna from heaven. Wright is out of place in Catholic Ireland and is convinced that the whole thing is a trick.”
To put it in the most banal terms imaginable, Pugh’s Wonder performance may “save” her from the Don’t Worry Darling debacle.
