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| - Cover art of the novel, published six years ago, that inspired a recent Netflix adaptation from director Sebastián Lelio - |
Last week when Netflix unveiled “The Wonder” I hastily assumed it would not be much to my liking. In skimming the movie's synopsis, I was a bit thrown by the rather overt, somewhat lazy creative decision to name the second lead Anna, given that she is a preteen girl demonstrating what might be described as a sort of obstinate, faith-driven “haunted Anorexia.” (For those unaware, within eating disorder circles "Ana" or "Anna" is frequently coded language for an anthropomorphized version of one’s affliction, a fictionalized entity with which one endures a love/hate relationship.) Secondly, the semi-abstract feature film is staged in the blighted and desolate rural moors of Victorian Ireland, which I unfairly perceived as another somewhat easy call in that it allows for the narrative to draw rather bold-faced symbolic reference to An Gorta Mor, or The Potato Famine.
Translated colloquially as “The Great Hunger,” this was a famously brutal mid-18th century agricultural disaster responsible for the deaths of entire communities, to say nothing of embedded and lingering trauma. Famously devout Christians, the Irish peoples have been seen throughout their history as adherents to a strict, near-radical branch of Catholicism, a faith that incorporates and reveres disturbing acts of martyrdom and voluntary, sacrificial flagellation. With cursory research one might recall that self-starvation and fasting are a common theme in religion, universally lauded as a pious, noble form of deprivation because it is the sufferer’s decision. Like renouncing sex or sleep, fasting is one of the ultimate forms of mind-over-matter corporeal restraint, in some cases even deemed worthy of sainthood. That an 11-year-old child, one who obsessively ruminates on the characters of Biblical lore, is now the centerpiece marvel —the titular “Wonder”— in an almost egregiously pious family within a few years reach of famine, is not lost on the viewer.
Where the film regained merit for me was in its spooky quality and ruminative pace, along with the uncertain message/intention of the central mystery. With some forty-five minutes remaining in running time I still wasn’t sure where "The Wonder" was ultimately leading. What sadly enriched & intensified my viewing experience is knowing firsthand the horrible physical and mental agony of nutritional deprival, what with an eating disorder first launched in girlhood and presently flaring. But when I consequently forgave (and gave into) the premise I found myself mesmerized. The internal conflict I faced in rejecting my critic’s voice almost mirrors the strong but gradually fading skepticism of Florence Pugh’s central nurse. She is originally hired to monitor Anna, whose family is suspected of staging the alleged “miracle” for fame & financial donations to their lamentably meager poor box, as benefitted by gawking, awestruck visitors. I especially appreciated that she was an Englishwoman assigned to oversee an Irish patient's care but instructed to DO NOTHING, as this dynamic reflects the criminal lack of intervention and assistance by Great Britain’s parliament for its then-indentured colony during its time of crisis. (To further strain the relationship, in the 19th century Irish tenant farmers were permitted few rights under England’s heartlessly restrictive Penal Laws, with the lasting resentment on pointed display in several exchanges of dialogue.)
Pugh anchors it all with an unapologetic, take-charge resoluteness recalling the best of Kate Winslet, and I imagine she is in line for similar plaudits, if not A-list opportunities. I was relieved that after just shy of two hours the gut-wrenching story arrived at a satisfying end without cheapening its vision. What's more, I thought it was a thoughtful detail, perhaps (yet again) a bit heavy-handed, to have Anna *SPOILER ALERT* reinvent herself, near-death, as a whole new person she calls "Nan". Not only is this a pointed rearrangement of her birth name but also, perhaps, serves as an intentional attempt to draw upon the Hindi meaning of the word. For those unacquainted with Indian cuisine, nan is unleavened bread; that it is shaped like a teardrop provides yet another poetic inclusion. (Certainly, it was not unintentional that Anna/Nan is “reborn” once she finally permits herself what appear to be the tiniest possible allowance of a softened wheat roll.) Such creative decisions summon to mind other elegant and artful gothic prestige pictures as "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," "The Piano," "Manon of the Spring," "Howard’s End," and (most famously) "Jane Eyre" in its countless incarnations.
It is not until Pugh's long-overdue interrogation of her charge in the final act that Anna ultimately divulges to her trusted nurse-come-friend the reasoning that has thus far motivated her "gradual suicide". When insistently (but compassionately) questioned, Anna confides that a prematurely deceased brother, Rupert, was her sexual abuser. For the sin of sibling fornication he is punished in the afterlife to an everlasting torture for which she, as his partner and "bride", is personally responsible and alone capable of reversing. “That’s what Hell is — it’s ceaseless,” she explains. For those enduring anorexia —or struggling with a comparative barrier to adequate sustenance— our own Great Hunger can be similarly unrelenting. I wish for so many the world over to be granted relief —if not release— in this life, or the next.
