Warning: This post contains major spoilers for The Wonder.Florence Pugh stars as the lead character Elizabeth “Lib” Wright, a nurse from England who had previously served in the Crimean War, in The Wonder, and her story has a triumphant ending. The Wonder narrates the story of a nurse who fights for her belief in science and refuses to give into the atmosphere of religious fervor of the environment in which she finds herself working. The film is a psychological period drama that was filmed in Ireland, where the story is set. Based on a real story, The Wonder is now available on Netflix after a limited release in theaters.
Directed by Sebastian Lelio, The Wonder is set in 1862, when Lib is sent to a rural village in Ireland to observe and report on The Wonder character Anna O’Donnell, played by Kila Lord Cassidy, a young girl who has allegedly not eaten for months. Despite not eating, Anna appears to be surprisingly healthy. This, her family asserts, is a result of consuming “manna from Heaven“, as opposed to ordinary food. This leaves Lib skeptical and decides to uncover the mystery behind Anna’s condition, becoming closer to William Byrne, a local journalist for The Daily Telegraph, in the process. This mysterious spirituality runs through the film, leading directly to The Wonder‘s ending. Here is everything in The Wonder‘s ending explained in detail.
What Happens In The Wonder’s Ending
At the end of The Wonder, Anna’s condition worsens after Lib prohibits her family from having physical contact with her. After realizing she had been eating food and is now dying of starvation in the Florence Pugh movie, Lib tries to convince the council that Anna is dying, and they have to intervene. However, the council does not believe her and decides to have a mass for Anna who her mother claims has been chosen by God the following day rather than trying to save her. Ultimately, Lib is the one who rescues Anna at the end of the film by faking the young girl’s death.
While the family and the rest of the village, is at Mass, Lib brings a nearly dead Anna away from her house to rescue her and feed her. After that, she returns to the house and leaves all of Anna’s belongings in her room before setting fire to the whole house. In an eerie scene in The Wonder, Florence Pugh’s Lib then meets with the council and informs them that Anna died of natural causes before she accidentally caused the fire. After being released from her obligations, Lib makes her way to Dublin where she meets William and Anna, who is now eating and healthy and now goes by the name Nan. The three of them, posing as a family, leave England on a ship bound for Sydney.
How Did Anna Go Without Food For So Long?
Based on the real-life phenomenon of the fasting girls, which refers to the high number of young girls that claimed to be able to go for long periods of time without food in the Victorian era, The Wonder starts with the premise that Anna has not been eating for months but is in good health, the very premise that Lib tries to dismantle for the better part of the film. Throughout The Wonder movie, Lib learns that Anna was being fed chewed food by her mother through kisses. In fact, Anna’s health deteriorates when Lib forbids the family from kissing or touching the girl, thus proving that Anna had actually been consuming food in the previous months.
Did Anna Die In The Wonder?
In The Wonder movie ending, a funeral Mass is held for the girl as everyone is aware of her worsening condition. Similarly, when Lib takes Anna away from her house during Mass, she tells the young girl that now Anna is ready to go to God and, only after Anna has closed her eyes, she explains that now Nan can live. Anna is revived as Lib feeds the dying girl, who is now reborn as Nan. It is Nan, then, then that is seen at the end of the film as a healthy young girl boarding for Sydney, while everyone in her village thinks Anna is dead.
At the end of The Wonder, then, Anna did die in a certain sense, only to be reborn again as a new person with a name she has chosen for herself. As Nan, Anna will finally be able to live her own life free of the pressures and expectations of her family and of the religious community around her. Similarly, Nan will be able to exist as her own person and leave behind not only her belongings but also her tragic backstory of abuse and fear. Having Anna die was also the only way for Nan to escape and finally eat again, now leaving behind her family’s blaming her for her brother’s death and the religious fervor that persuaded her to stop eating.
What Does Kitty Breaking The Fourth Wall Mean?
The Wonder begins in a modern-day sound studio where a period film is being shot, the audience is introduced to the set by a narrator who is revealed to be Kitty, played by Raised by Wolves actor Niamh Algar. Viewers soon learn she’s Anna’s older sister. In the last scene of the film, the audience is transported back to the same modern-day setting. As such, Kitty, dressed in modern clothing, regains her role as the narrator of the story and breaks the fourth wall once again, addressing her viewers directly and forcing them to reflect on Anna’s situation and the condition of many other oppressed women at large. By speaking directly to the audience, The Wonder forces viewers to acknowledge that while it’s a story on screen, it’s also very real. The fourth wall break hints that only in fiction could a young girl be saved like this; in reality, there are plenty of girls like Anna/Nan every day who fall through the cracks and are never saved.
The Real Meaning Of The Wonder’s Ending
The Wonder suggests many metaphors throughout its narrative. In particular, that of the bird is carried through until the very final scene of the film as Kitty repeats the words heard before in the film “In, out, in out.” Earlier in The Wonder, “in, out” refers to a bird seemingly being in and out of a cage simultaneously, as shown by William, played by upcoming Mad Max star Tom Burke. The repetition of the line suggests that Anna’s situation is that of a caged bird and questions whether Nan is now in or out of her cage. As they all take up fake identities to live overseas and abandon everything and everyone, are any of the main characters really free?
The ending of The Wonder also makes the audience reflect on the fact that what they have just watched is fiction. Ending the film in a film set with a narrator dressed in modern clothing serves as a reminder that the viewers have just seen a film, the same reminder that The Wonder opened with. As such, she invites the audience to reflect on the fact that while everything may ultimately be fiction, it is up to every single spectator to believe in the stories they see on screen and choose what stories affect and define their own personal stories.
