the mysterious true story that inspired the film

Mysterious cases. Already available across the Channel since the beginning of the month, the film The Wonder with Florence Pugh will be available on Netflix from November 16. Directed by Sebastián Lelio, this feature film is the adaptation of the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue, who is also a screenwriter on the film. This is his second book adapted after Room in 2015, for which she had also written the screenplay, and which had won an Oscar for Brie Larson.

The Wonder follows the investigation of an English nurse who came to examine a young girl in an Irish village. Without knowing what the purpose of his mission is when he arrives, Lib Wright discovers that Anna O’Donnell claims not to have eaten for four months. A story impossible to accept for the nurse who will do everything to disentangle the true from the false. Behind this surprising intrigue which takes place in the middle of the 19th century, it is actually abouta story inspired by real events.

The story of the “Fasting girls”

During the 19th century, several girls, usually pre-teens, claimed to be able to survive without food. A proof, according to them and certain religious, of a divine sign close to the miracle, having conferred on them supernatural powers. One of the most famous cases is that of Sarah Jacob, a young Welsh girl who claimed not to have eaten for two years. Having become a celebrity, Sarah Jacob received many visits, but ended up arousing certain suspicions. Examined for two weeks in the hospital, she is finally starved to death, despite the warnings of the medical profession to his parents. They refused until the end that the doctors give him food and were convicted of “manslaughter”, a criminal offense specific to common law states.

About these various businesses, the doctors of the time evoked a “fraud” or a form of hysteria. Some historians later believed that it was of the first known cases of anorexia. For The Wonderalthough Emma Donoghue was inspired by these true cases, it is a totally made-up story.