Wanting Fame, a Farm Girl Has Disturbing Dreams of Stardom

Mia Goth in "Pearl"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Back in March, writer-director Ti West gave audiences the throwback slasher, “X,” a fun and tense movie that followed a film crew that puts up shop on a Texas farm for the setting of their adult film, only to then be terrorized by the farm’s owners.  Not only is it the best horror movie of the year right now, but also one of the best films of the year.  After the credits, there was a final surprise: a teaser announcement for the already-filmed prequel, “Pearl,” which sets out to tell the story of one of the killers from the previous film.  What West gives us is a movie that’s as character-driven as it is nail-biting and lives up to what came before.

Pearl (Mia Goth) is a farm girl in Texas who dreams of becoming a star.  However, she’s told by her mother (Tandi Wright) that she has to stay with her to help take care her sick father (Matthew Sunderland).  As Pearl becomes more and more impatient to leave her old life behind for something greater, she’ll do whatever she can to get what she wants.

With Goth having portrayed two characters in “X,” that of the young aspiring actress Maxine Minx and the much older farm owner Pearl, she displayed a terrific range of what she can do with her talents.  She now gets to go even further with the character of Pearl, bringing out the same aspirations for fame that we saw in Maxine and combining them with the hidden rage that we saw in the older Pearl, and then heightening both of them to develop an intense, volatile character whose psyche begins to crack into irreparable damage.  Between “X” and “Pearl,” we see both of these characters’ needs to get away from their lives and search for something more.  However, that ambition is where their comparisons end because this is a performance where, after we see Goth present a seemingly innocent, daydreaming young woman who desires to be discovered, she quickly turns Pearl into someone much, much darker as she realizes she has to do some terrible things in order to get what she wants.  And, to see Goth portray Pearl’s unraveling keeps you on edge as you watch how far her character’s willing to go to see her dreams fulfilled.

Goth’s work in this film reaches a disturbing and poignant highlight near the film’s end where Pearl opens up about the darkness in her mind.  This is done in a mesmerizing monologue that’s done in one long take with a closeup of Pearl, the only time her character will get the dramatic Hollywood closeup that she craves.  It’s a scene that lasts for several minutes that will have your eyes imprisoned to the screen.  If you thought Goth was good in “X,” she finds a whole new depth when portraying a younger Pearl.  With Goth having portrayed the older Pearl in “X,” this allows her to really show her understanding of the character, having displayed Pearl as both a young woman and an older woman and experiencing this character from two time periods.  She takes the sadness of the older Pearl and gives it rich, painful context in her latest performance.

There’s also a great scene about halfway through the film that’s shared by Goth and Wright, where the two characters come to a head about what they’ve had to sacrifice to ensure their survival on the farm.  You see a battle between someone who’s given up her dreams, and someone who refuses to do so.  With a storm pounding outside their home as they have this emotional argument, the way in which they dial up their anger little by little makes for a tense scene that’s one of the film’s most memorable.

The screenplay by West and Goth gives audiences a deeper look into Pearl’s character, expanding on the surprising depth that was given to her in “X.”  In between the tense moments of gruesomeness, West and Goth provide us with extended sequences that are all about the characters and how they interact under what they want out of life and the strains of their hardships.  With the pacing of the narrative, there’s considerable buildup to each moment of violence, so by the time they happen, we’re invested in all of the characters who are involved with these scenes.  This is an origin story done right, not one done to squeeze extra money from the people who saw the earlier installment, but rather a film that has a story to tell that adds to what we’ve seen.

While “X” was written like an old-school slasher, “Pearl” has the vibe of a classic Hollywood production, but maintains the slasher angle.  The film plays out like a demented version of “The Wizard of Oz,” but is still able to tell its own story that has you see the world through Pearl’s eyes.  The homage that’s used in this film allows for West and Goth to get creative with how they utilize the old-Hollywood sensibilities, adding another layer with which to engage the audience and have them spot the screenwriters’ influences.

To further the look of a Hollywood Golden Age film, West re-teams with cinematographer Eliot Rockett, who provided the camerawork for “X” and three other films from West.  For “Pearl,” the look of the film has more of an old-Hollywood, technicolor vibe, like the aforementioned “Wizard of Oz.”  Many of the colors pop off of the screen, a departure from the equally effective grimy slasher look of “X.” 

As a director, West is a filmmaker who knows how to make us recoil in our seats as we wait to see what kind of terror he has in store.  But, his biggest accomplishment of this film is how well he’s able to make the character moments stick with us, often creating as much tension with those as he does with the horror-centric ones.  With these character-driven scenes, such as the turning-point dinner-table discussion between Pearl and her mother, or the scene where Pearl waits to go on stage for an audition, West makes full use of their length and utilizes his directorial prowess to deliver as much apprehension as possible with pretty simple technical approaches.

West is set to continue his series with the recently green-lit, “MaXXXine,” which will be a sequel to “X” and will follow Goth’s character from that film as she tries to establish a career in Hollywood.  If this third installment continues the upward trajectory that has been established by “X” and “Pearl,” we could have another classic horror series on our hands.

Grade: A