[Film Review] Pearl (2022)

After his salacious return to cinema with X, Ti West has once again gifted us with a film that harks back to a very specific period of iconic cinema with Pearl.

This prequel to his 70s era sex-fest delves deeper into the origins of the titular woman as we are yet again transported to her Texan farmhouse, this time in 1918. Pearl cares for her ill father under the strict supervision of her cold mother, as her husband Howard is away fighting in the war. But Pearl has bigger dreams, she longs to leave her humble life to be a star of stage and screen, and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. What starts as a story of a sweet girl in rural America (with a hint of animal murder) soon escalates into a killing spree as Pearl’s darker side starts to show through the cracks in her innocent smile. West revealed that the production of Pearl started a mere three weeks after X wrapped, set in the same location with Mia Goth returning in the lead role, this time without the use of heavy ageing prosthetics.

Unfortunately, the UK is receiving this film months after the US, meaning that many scenes had already been spoilt on social media before I was able to see it for myself. Regardless of this, Pearl is still worth a watch. The old-school ‘picture-show’ aesthetic of the film takes clear influences from  The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, with the bright Technicolour imagery and swelling music of the golden age. The narrative content vastly contrasts this, the violence on screen is unyielding and brutal, leaving you in a haze as you try to keep up with Pearl’s constant and impulsive changes in her emotions. A vastly different experience to X, Pearl could be enjoyed as an entirely separate film, however it does add the historical context of how this young farming woman became the murderous and sex obsessed elder we witness in the 1970s

Mia Goth’s performance as Pearl is showstopping. Her frozen smile and unstoppable rage at the world are frightening yet laced with empathy and understanding. Here we see a woman trapped, isolated from her dreams by the circumstances that life has thrown at her. Desperate to escape to a greater existence, Pearl soon learns that stardom isn’t for everyone, and yet she can’t give up on her dreams. Goth’s subtle changes in her expressions, her tone and her overall demeanour elevate the character to a new level of understanding, the audience find themselves siding with Pearl as she screams into what feels like the abyss. This combined with an eight-minute monologue towards the conclusion of the film (which has so much exposition and explanation in it, it could have been its own movie) means that an audience doesn’t want to leave Pearl as the credits roll. She is a person you want to keep watching because, in her own words, she is a star. 

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As a self-proclaimed gore-hound, I was also incredibly satisfied with the kills in this film. Without spoiling the plot, some were played appropriately for darker comedy, whilst others raised tension to great effect. The blood was bright red and abundant, the special effects were perfection, and every murder added to the story. A real chef’s kiss quality of carnage was put into this film, which, due to filming straight off the back of X, had a surprisingly low budget of $1 million, not that you can tell from the sheer quality of the final product. 

The sequel and final film in this killer trilogy, Maxxxine, has been announced, with no release date in the pipeline yet, but one thing’s for sure, if it’s anything like the previous two films, it’s sure to be a wild ride. For now, I think I’ll be taking Pearl’s determination with me throughout 2023, everyone deserves to feel like the star they believe themselves to truly be, and like Pearl, you should stop at nothing to achieve that dream (maybe don’t murder people, but you get the idea). 

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