Florence Pugh cut her teeth in the 2017 adaptation of Lady Macbeth, a Victorian thriller set in rural Northumberland which saw her play a young murderess. For her first Netflix project, the Don’t Worry, Darling star is going back to her period drama roots as the lead in the adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel The Wonder. Ahead of the film’s premiere this spring, a quick recap of everything we know so far about the project.
The plot is distinctly eerie
Set in mid-19th-century Ireland, The Wonder centers around the deeply religious 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who becomes a tourist attraction in her remote village thanks to her claim that she’s eaten nothing for months, surviving on the purest “manna from heaven” rather than actual food. Enter British nurse Lib Wright (Pugh), who previously served in the Crimea under Florence Nightingale (“Miss N”), and has been tasked with observing Anna and monitoring her health. Joining her in the Irish Midlands: the no-nonsense journalist Will Byrne (Tom Burke), who’s insistent that someone is slipping food to Anna (and that this person is, in fact, liable for child abuse).
The Irish landscape will feature heavily
In a first for Netflix, production for The Wonder took place largely in and around County Wicklow in Ireland, with a few detours to Dublin as well. Pugh kept fans updated about the shoot via Instagram, sharing a photograph of the verdant landscape in and around the town of Hollywood. “We’ve been traipsing around the Irish hills for the last week,” she wrote alongside another shot of herself in period costume. “It’s truly been a magnificent start to a beautiful and exciting film. What a story to get our teeth stuck into, what a crew to be working alongside and a fantastic director Sebastian Lelio to be leading us! This will be fun.”
It’s based on a true Victorian phenomenon
Donoghue—best known for her chilling thriller *Room—*cites the stories of “fasting girls” reported across Europe during the Victorian era as the inspiration for The Wonder. Perhaps the most famous case of a girl claiming to be nourished by her belief in God alone is the Welsh tween Sarah Jacob, whose vicar reported on her years of fasting in the local newspapers—with the case subsequently gaining national attention. Doctors later insisted on monitoring Jacob in the hospital, where she died of starvation—leading to her parents’ conviction for manslaughter.
Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has a few surprises in store
A contemporary of Pablo Larraín, filmmaker Sebastián Lelio is expected to bring his distinctive style to the film—much the same way that Larraín put his own spin on the notion of a royal biopic with Spencer. “Bringing the powerful novel The Wonder by Emma Donoghue to the screen not only offers me the chance to portray the collision between reason and faith, individual and community, obedience and rebellion, but also to explore my own interpretation of what a ‘period’ film can be,” he revealed in a statement via Netflix.
The team has connections to the Sally Rooney universe
The Wonder is, of course, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author behind Room. Irish auteur Lenny Abrahamson famously translated Room to the screen in 2015, with Brie Larson in the lead role, before going on to direct both Normal People and the forthcoming Conversations with Friends on the BBC and Hulu. Meanwhile, Alice Birch—who worked with Pugh on Lady Macbeth and collaborated with Rooney on the scripts for both dramas—has penned the screenplay for The Wonder in collaboration with Donoghue.
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