The Wonder

Thanks to Andrew's parents adding us to their Netflix account we've been catching up on recent films released on the platform, notably Glass Onion (dir. Rian Johnson, 2022) and The Wonder (dir. Sebastián Lelio, 2022). The Knives Out films, as enjoyable as I find them, don't need any help from me. The Wonder, however, is a film I feel ought to research and write about, and it is that feeling moreso than the film itself that I'll share thoughts about for now.

In 2016 while I was a fixed-term lecturer in film at Lancaster University I designed a project with which to apply for a Leverhulme early career fellowship in the hopes of getting myself a job remaining there and developing my career in a more solid direction. It was a study of contemporary transregional moving image production across Britain and Ireland. It would have been an expansion of my PhD research on these practices in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 out to and across the other small nations, regions, provinces and islands of this archipelago off the west coast of Europe. I simultaneously had interests in comparisons in film production between Northern Ireland and Chile, my work on which has been continually knocked back (most recently with the suggestion that I look at Derry Girls instead). The Wonder coming out and being so flipping good makes me feel a little vindicated that I was on to something as it neatly brings together both of these topics. This is why I feel that I should be writing about it, but I also feel resistant because nobody with any sway really wanted to equip me to do so in any significant way. 

I'm grappling a lot with what I feel I should be doing as a reader, writer and researcher and leaning towards what I can do to make ends meet. My funding period with Arts Council England is up in a matter of weeks. Personal challenges have knocked me off track from my initial goals, but I have also on paper fulfilled almost all of what I set out to do. With awareness that I seem to have seasonal affective disorder - I find the short, cold, often dull days of winter tougher than base-level days most of the rest of the year - I feel trepidation at what is to come next. 

I have begun 2023 attempting to establish good habits. I use notebooks I have been gifted to write a minimum amount every day, usually a haiku and a daily page. Posting on this blog continues to be a minimum weekly aim. I do need to focus on my funded project, though, and figure the rest out as it comes. I think it's useful to work through things as I'm doing here with this 'ought to write about this' feeling. 

There are several strands to my resistance. Firstly, writing responses to films, including films in my perceived area, is not something I get recompensed for. I'm not a jobbing journalist or reviewer. I don't have an academic job or a desire to get one again. No one asks me to broadcast what I think about the films I view. We're in a culture where many of us just do that and we fall into thinking that we ought to be posting because our followers will want to know and we'll feel gratified by their likes and comments, or sad when likes and comments don't come. 

I recently turned AdSense back on this blog after deactivating a while ago because I don't like how Google operates. I reconsidered because I need the income where I can get it, and so I must compromise my morals. However, they've informed me that ads can't run because of 'low quality content'. Quite the burn. What I post is not valuable enough or viewed enough for me to make a few measly pennies off advertising. Perhaps I'd better just stay in my internet corner and let the Tik Tokers do their thing. It's all well and good saying that if you write then you are a writer, but if what you write isn't a desired read, then what do we do?

What I will say about The Wonder is that I've been thinking a lot about themes of consumption in familial relationships, and I imagine this story will work on me for some time. I'd like to read the novel. I wanted to read Emma Donoghue's Room after seeing Lenny Abrahamson's 2015 film adaptation but I just couldn't bear to experience that story again. There is a complexity to The Wonder that I appreciate: the clash of science, religion and forms of love, family choices and chosen families, place and home, British and Irish identities, women, girls and men. I could talk you through it all, but I'd rather you just watch it. Absorb it. Do as it says and don't take it at face value. Enjoy the colours and costumes. Enjoy the performances - the best of Irish and English. Consider the harms and the love behind them. And move forward with hope.

 

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