The Wonder (2022 | UK | 103 minutes | Sebastián Lelio)

As an English nurse hired to witness a possible miracle in Ireland, Florence Pugh is a steely presence in The Wonder, Sebastián Lelio’s adaptation of the Emma Donoghue novel. A spiritual detective story of sorts emerges in a remote Irish village where a young girl appears to have survived for months without eating. A council of serious men — physicians, town elders, a priest — decide that a two week observation by two nurses taking eight hour shifts is the only way to determine whether the feat is divine intervention or some sort of hoax.

With her scientific training and cerulean dress, Pugh’s Nurse Wright stands out among the drab earth tones and insular attitudes of the village. She’s certain that the young girl (Kíla Lord Cassidy, as Anne) can’t possibly be surviving without nutrition, but the terms of her contract demand that she only observe, never intervene. She speaks to the curious and seriously-minded girl, whose days are spent whispering prayers and studying the saints, and inspects every nook and cranny of her person and the cottage for an explanation of how she remains alive. When the girl’s once unnaturally good health begins a rapid and occasionally gory decline upon the imposition of stricter isolation, Wright is confronted with a choice of violating her non-intervention pact, convincing the stubborn men to end the experiment, and solving the riddle of the pious girl who refuses a bite of food.

Each faction comes from a place of deeply held belief and experience and untangling the mystery lies in navigating the murky currents of their vying motivations. Lelio casts the starvation story in a gothic horror mode that’s constantly revealing itself among the desolate landscape. Through her own nightly rituals and a developing relationship with a newspaper man with his own dark history with the town, we gradually learn the tragedies that shaped the resilient nurse. As the stakes rise to pit earthly life and death against faith and the state of immortal souls, we come to realize that the solution to the puzzle lies in tending to the needs of others by first coming to understand their root causes.

Bones and All (2022 | USA | 130 minutes | Luca Guadagnino)

An entirely different kind of hunger is the subject of Bones and All. Luca Guadagnino has never shied away from heightened depictions of pleasures or torments of the flesh. Here, our first meeting of new-girl-in-town Maren (Taylor Russell) comes as she sneaks out of the shabby trailer home she shares with her seemingly overly-strict father to make an appearance at a tenuous new friend’s sleepover. Filmed from above through a glass table, the bonding moment between the two girls is sweet and slightly romantic. That is, until it suddenly takes a turn to graphic gnarly gore. It’s a revolting audience cue to buckle up and expect nothing other than “full sicko” from the coming love story.

Taylor Russell plays the role of a bloodthirsty teen with a mix of fear and revulsion. Incidents like this gory slip-up have too-frequently set her and her father (Andre Holland, wearily devoted) on the run. Soon, she finds herself on her own in search of her long-absent mother. A freshly-legal adult, albeit with limited resources, she embarks on cross-country journey by Greyhound bus. By way of a Walkman that serves as an audio farewell note and convenient source of exposition, she gleans further knowledge of her own history (with the story set in the early 1980s, there’s no Wikipedia or fan-sites to consult regarding tips & tricks for the cannibalistic teen). What she finds instead are more of her own kind, “eaters” whose biological need for human flesh makes them societal outcasts both gifted and cursed with superhuman senses of perception.

One, played by a singsongy Mark Rylance in a bedazzled blazer and creepy braided ponytail, attempts to teach her the unsettling ways of “ethical eating”. It’s a queasy lesson that tests the audience’s stomach. Later, she meets Timothée Chalamet as Leo, a scrawny damaged punk with pink highlighted hair, ripped jeans, street smarts borne from years of grisly experience, and a quiet seductive air that he employs to frightening effect. Alongside an eighties soundtrack and a melancholic yet menacing score written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (also in play with Empire of Light), the two forge a friendship of necessity and occasional repulsion on a road trip peppered with unsettlingly grotesque encounters.

As their relationship deepens, the film challenges the notions of radical acceptance and definitions of love. Amid jump scares and unsettlingly bloody sequences, it’s a showcase of menace, terror, and regret. It’s not always perfect, but it finds room for stillness and normalcy and challenges assumptions (like, why are vampires cool but cannibals are so much grosser?) while keeping its audience on edge for the next revolting revelation. Of course, Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell convincingly go for it, but you’ll truly never be able never to see Mark Rylance the same. His utterly unnerving performance is one for the ages.

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