24 Sep Pearl Review

PEARL

dir. Ti West, starring Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, and Emma Jenkins-Purro

Circa 1918, Pearl lives on a farm with her overbearing mother, helping to care for her infirmed father as she dreams of a becoming a star and leaving the farm forever. Wanting to live the glamourous life like the movies she’s occasionally able to sneak off to, Pearl sets her sights on a dance competition that can help make her dreams come true. Pearl’s naked ambition, coupled with the unbridled rage at the hopelessness of her situation and the inability to get from under the icy watch of her mother, all combine to bring out a darkness in her that sets the course of one of the most interesting slasher villains of the past few years.

Pearl, a follow-up to X from director Ti West, gives us an extended flashback of the octogenarian killer that delighted audiences earlier this year. The beauty of this film is in its difference from the first; while X is a slasher reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that also has a bit of fun with the genre, Pearl is character study of said slasher. The movie isn’t looking to absolve the killer of their horrendous acts, or even explain how things came to be, it merely presents the story as fact for the audience to help flesh out its titular character. Plenty of horror movies have sought to give back story to their iconic characters, but Pearl delivers a crisp, fast-moving story that isn’t afraid to put her horrific actions on full display. There’s no tragic past, no one traumatizing event that sets her on a course for villainy. The message is simple: Pearl has always been this way.

Starring Mia Goth, Pearl is fully and completely her film from start to finish. A wholly different performance than the (frankly outstanding) dual roles she played in X, Pearl allows Goth to fully mine the depravity of a person fully aware of their limited options in life. Whereas Maxine is freewheeling, and late-stage Pearl is hampered by the ravages of time, here in Pearl Goth is delivering the character at an early stage in life, full of possibility with no outlet to channel it into. Desperation is the name of the game in Pearl, and Goth’s ability to convey Pearl’s overwhelming need to get outta Dodge is masterfully handled, offering an award-worthy performance. Featuring a minutes-long monologue (because A24 seems to love dinner table monologues), Goth gives the performance of a lifetime in a scene that manages to hit every emotional beat as Pearl cycles through guilt, regret, sorrow, and acceptance of the monster she is. As for the remainder of the cast, David Corenswet is delightfully charming as the unnamed theater projectionist, Tandi Wright utterly cold as Pearl’s mother, and Emma Jenkins-Purro as possibly the film’s most sympathetic character as Mitsy, Pearl’s sister-in-law.

Written, directed, edited, and produced by Ti West (co-written by Mia Goth), Pearl shows West fully coming into his own. Building off the momentum and goodwill of X, West parlays Pearl from a surprising one-off slasher film into a fully realized multigenerational tale of repression and expressive freedom. While keeping the stories themselves fairly simple, West and company has inhabited these stories with fascinating characters with believable motivations and obstacles. With Pearl, West and Goth take pains to detail the level of desperation she’s reached and dropping the audience in media res to view a woman who’s already reached a dark point in her life makes for a great way to start the film. West doesn’t use the audience’s knowledge of the previous movie as narrative shorthand to introduce Pearl; anyone can come into this film with no foreknowledge and immediately tell something is off with our main character. Thanks to the production design, the world of Pearl feels familiar while adding new elements; case in point: the audience sees more of the barn in X and more of the house in Pearl. Taking place at the end of WWI, the world is a bit more open than the 1970s of X, and the shots of Pearl bicycling by tall stalks of corn is an amusing nod to the Wicked Witch of the West, another character driven by desperation. The film’s score, produced by Tyler Bates and Tim Williams, compliments the movie, starting out happy-go-lucky before descending into chaos and dissidence, matching Pearl’s mood and actions perfectly.

Overall, while Pearl is a completely different feel from its predecessor, it still works within the universe West and Goth have created for what will eventually be a horror trilogy. If there’s one thing that can be said for the character of Pearl, she gets busy with some weapons: pitchforks, hatchets, alligators, pillowcases, no object is off limits when it comes to the deranged woman dispatching of those who she perceives to have wronged her. Mia Goth’s acting singlehandedly carries the film’s entire runtime; rarely is there a frame without her in it. West’s direction is solid and competent, content to continue building this world full of interesting and off-kilter characters. Nowhere near as scary as X but immensely more fascinating, Pearl stands as the superior of the two films. Pearl is currently in theaters.

Review by Darryl Mansel