Dave Cunningham
Florence Pugh has been cast in Netflix’s upcoming psychological thriller The Wonder. Pugh will portray Lib Wright, an English nurse who travels to a small Irish hamlet in 1859 and observes an 11-year-old girl go months without food, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
‘The Wonder’: What there is to expect?
The Wonder is a Netflix original film based on Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel of the same name. According to Deadline, here’s the official synopsis of the film:
“The novel is set in Irish Midlands, 1859 and follows an English nurse, Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle – a girl said to have survived without food for months. Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other’s lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.”
Donough shared her thoughts in creating the book:
“I discovered the phenomenon of the Fasting Girls in the mid-1990s. I was immediately intrigued by these cases, which seemed to echo medieval saints who starved as a penance, as well as modern anorexics, but which were not exactly the same. The fact that these girls became celebrities by not eating seemed to say a lot about what it means to be a girl – in many Western countries from the 16th century to the 20th century. But I never found a single real case that triggered that little bell in me that told me that was the story I had to tell in a novel. Some were too tragic, even for a writer with my dark tastes, others were low-level comedy.
Eventually, it occurred to me that if I was still so fascinated with the Fasting Girls, two decades later, I had to give up my usual method of writing a historical novel based on a real case, and let myself be go to make up a story. I would situate it in Ireland, of course, not only because it’s my homeland, but also because, since the great famine of the 1840s, we have defined ourselves as a people intimately linked to hunger.”
Pugh, who has been nominated for an Oscar, has had a string of great ventures in recent years, including Black Widow, Little Women, and Midsommar, and she will reprise her role as Yelena Belova in Marvel’s Hawkeye later in 2021. The adapted script is written by Alice Birch, with Ed Guiney and Tessa Ross producing. Pugh is also poised to star in Universal’s adaptation of Nita Prose’s debut novel, The Maid, for the big screen.
Netflix is looking for extras to help with the filming of a forthcoming film starring Florence Pugh, which will be shot in Ireland next month. At the time of writing, The Wonder is still in pre-production, with no set filming or release date.
