Movie Reaction: Pearl

Formula: X – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

 

I loved X. Ti West is one of my favorite working horror filmmakers. Mia Goth is great in her dual roles in the film. But, I was worried about Peral. The film was made almost on a whim and in secret after production wrapped for X. It’s a big shift in tone from X. X was a grisly slasher in the vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Pearl, on the other hand, is the style of The Wizard of Oz and the story of Psycho put in a grindhouse blender. With the limited cast, budget, and time, I had real concerns about if they’d be able to pull that off. It sounded like more of an experiment than a film. The kind of thing that would pop up as a short film in the extras on the X Blu-ray. When I realized that Pearl would be even longer than X, I really got concerned. The end result is a movie that’s less consistent than X but has some incredible highs.

 

Pearl is a prequel that tells the original of Pearl, the only woman who, with her husband, kills the young people on their farm in X. In Peral, she’s played again by Mia Goth, but not under old age makeup. Pearl’s husband is gone fighting World War 2, so Pearl is left behind living with her disapproving mother and sick father. Pearl dreams of living a bigger life. Similar to Goth’s Maxine in X, Pearl wants to be a star. The problem is, she has these violent impulses, and eventually they become too powerful to hold back. So she kills some people. That’s pretty much the movie. It’s thin. Deliberately so.

 

Really, the whole film is an acting showcase for Mia Goth who is phenomenal. I’ve had my doubts about Goth before. I thought she was miscast in Mayday. She often pops up just to be weird. I was pleasantly surprised by how relatively normal she was in Emma, and X deployed her well. Pearl is just about perfect for her. She’s a weird person who desperately wants to be normal. That’s ideal Goth. A lot has been said already about her 9-minute monologue in the film and I’d add to the chorus of praise for that. She absolutely deserves to be in the Oscar discussion for this movie. It won’t happen because horror movies don’t get that kind of consideration easily and A24 will already be putting their efforts toward Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once. So be it.

 

The rest of the cast is fine. They very much are there to support Goth. They all play outsized, cinematic characters, and it’s fun to see how Goth’s Pearl blows them all away still. It’s like playing a game a chicken with an insane person. No matter how hard anyone else leans into their stock character, Goth leans in harder.

 

Pearl needs X more than X needs Pearl, but I’m loving the decision to give us both and a third movie next year to make this into a saga.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend