Yes, some of its characters “believe in their stories with complete devotion,” but some do not, and some of those use the power of stories to malevolent ends. Yes, The Wonder is only a story, but it is inspired by devastatingly consequential historical events. Not only is the framing pretentious and unnecessary, as many have noted, but its message is almost entirely at odds with Donoghue’s novel and Lelio’s own film. This “it’s only a story about stories” device, which is not part of the book but frames-and at one point, awkwardly interrupts-the film, is a bafflingly terrible intervention by director Sebastián Lelio. And so we invite you to believe in this one.” The people you are about to meet, the characters, believe in their stories with complete devotion. The beginning of a film called The Wonder. After the bare-bones opening credits, we hear the voice of Irish actor Niamh Algar: “This is the beginning. 'A fable as lean and discomfiting as Anna's dwindling body.The otherwise excellent adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel The Wonder(2016) begins with a slow pan of a cavernous film studio, showing sets perched in scaffolding, camera equipment arrayed in bins and cases, and cables snaking across a hospital-green concrete floor. 'Heartbreaking and transcendent' ( New York Times)

Dark and vivid, with complicated characters, this is a novel that lodges itself deep' ( USA Today, 3/4 stars)

Written with all the propulsive tension that made Room a huge bestseller, The Wonder works beautifully on many levels-a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil. Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale's Crimean campaign, is hired to keep watch over the girl. Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, who believes herself to be living off manna from heaven, and a journalist is sent to cover the sensation. Now a Netflix film starring Florence Pugh: In this “old-school page turner” (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review ) by the bestselling author of Room, an English nurse is brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle-a girl said to have survived without food for months-and soon finds herself fighting to save the child's life.

Donoghue's 2016 novel the wonder