Pearl (2022)

I had no preconceived notions when I first sat down to watch X. I saw a film that was just a take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive. More Eaten Alive, in my opinion. The problem was that the narrative driving the plot along to introduce Pearl was just dumb and uninteresting. A bunch of young people want to film a porn in a Texas farmhouse. Okay. Yes, I understand that this is our starting point for Maxine and Pearl. But I didn’t give a shit about either character in X. I sure as hell didn’t care about Jenna Ortega’s character, either. But let’s move on from that.

Now we find ourselves in chapter 2, the prequel. Because of how blah I found X, I couldn’t have cared less about Pearl. Finally, I decided it was time to watch it. Oddly enough, I am glad I did. It was a strange turn of events indeed.

This time around, Mia Goth plays just Pearl, a young girl trapped in isolation, lacking most social skills, and deeply repressed. Instead of Eaten and Alive and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we are taking queues from The Wizard of Oz—Maybe even a few ideas from American Werewolf in London.

Goth’s performance here is fantastic. Her transformation from the unsure, naive little farm girl to an absolute raving psychotic is worth the viewing. Pearl desperately wants to leave the family farm during World War 1. Furthermore, the country is dealing with the Spanish Flu epidemic.

Pearl’s overbearing mother and wheelchair-ridden father make great fodder to give us the background on why Pearl is so scared of her future. She would do anything to get off that farm and away from her family. Even to the point of believing the local movie projectionist could be her one-way ticket to Europe. But that ends just as quickly as it began, and the projectionist finds himself pitchforked and alligator food.

After Pearl’s disastrous audition to become a line dancer for the overseas military, things only go from bad to worse. She slips even deeper into her self-loathing and psychosis. She is disheartened by the world.

Mia Goth’s monologue has been all the rage, which is understandable. She gives a stellar performance here and sells the idea of the lowly farm girl trying to escape from a mundane world for bigger and better things, without eyebrows, of course. The ending for poor Mitsy was inevitable. The reality is the extra characters that wander into her life aren’t all that bad. The Projectionist was pervy but seemed genuinely interested in Pearl, and Mitsy was a sweet sister-in-law who appeared to really like Pearl. Their ends were met with savage brutality and out the other end of an alligator. I can only assume Howard stayed with her out of fear.

So, the reality is that you need Pearl to make X make sense. Pearl’s anger and frustration with the world and her need for the excess she never had, made more sense after seeing Pearl. In X, you had zero background on her situation.

All of that will probably culminate in the abundance of attention and glamour that Maxxxine seems to present. My feeling is that Maxine will find a similar fate, and there will end up being a cautionary tale of what it is to want and never get, but then also get everything you want, but at what cost? That is all just speculation, though, as the third film hasn’t come out yet.

Listen, I know people are head over heels for Goth and Ti West, but it is what it is for me. This was miles better than X for me, and I look forward to Maxxxine. A lot of A24 and Ti West’s stuff is just a little too pretentious for me. This was good, and I enjoyed it. That is a big step for me.