The Wonder is, at first, a very strange title for such a grim, austere, borderline brutal looking and feeling film. It’s a film that slowly feasts on your soul and belief in human kindness. It’s a cruel, frustrating film that isn’t a lot of fun to watch, but is immensely watchable.

The film is about a nurse who is charged with watching a teenage girl who has allegedly not eaten in four months. The heavily religious community is sure this is a miracle but the more scientific-minded look to it as a possible new science to explore. Florence Pugh plays the nurse who is more suspicious about miracles and heretofore unknown sciences.

What a strange, slow-paced, unsettling movie full of some of the strangest, most unsettling music. In any other context, this would be a straight horror movie – a ghost story full of the vocalizations of the dead. But it’s more of a slow-burn mystery and an analysis of well-meaning but strict-minded religious dogma.

I watched this flick with a growing sense of frustration and anger. Of slowly creeping desperation. We root for Pugh’s nurse because we know she’s both right and righteous. It’s a tough film to watch as it keeps you pinned down by that haunting score, and wanting our protagonist to act and for all the stone walls to get out of her way.

I don’t know if I could say I enjoyed this film, but it was certainly a picture of a mood, an atmospheric slowly creeping thriller. It’s certainly worth a watch, even if you come away a little bummed… and maybe a little hopeful despite everything.

Score: 86