“Pearl”

Movie Review

A 2022 slasher film with Mia Goth reprising her title role, Pearl is directed by Ti West and co-written by West and Goth. In supporting roles, it also features Emma Jenkins-Purro, Tandi Wright, David Corenswet, and Matthew Sunderland. It serves as the genesis tale for the title antagonist, whose passionate desire to become a movie star drove her to do violent actions on her family's Texas property in 1918. It is a prequel to X and the second entry in the X film series.

When Pearl's husband, Howard, is away fighting in the Great War in 1918, she is a young woman living with her German immigrant parents on their Texas property. Ruth, Pearl's controlling mother, demands that Pearl help take care of both her disabled and paralyzed father as well as the family farm. To Ruth's chagrin, Pearl, who yearns for a more interesting existence, is enthralled by the movies she watches at the neighborhood theater and dreams of becoming a chorus girl. The fact that Pearl murders farm animals and physically assaults her father are only two examples of how she exhibits characteristics of being a troubled person.

A young projectionist Pearl meets at the theater develops feelings for her. On her bicycle ride home, Pearl stops along a cornfield and begins dancing with a scarecrow while having fantasies about the projectionist. Pearl gets reprimanded for being irresponsible and having her supper withheld after her mother notices that eight cents are missing from an errand Pearl completed.

An audition is being held to locate new dancers for a traveling company, which Pearl imagines as a route out of her predicament. Pearl's wealthy sister-in-law, Mitsy, informs her of this. Later, after dark, she leaves the house without permission and goes to the projectionist, who shows her A Free Ride, an illegal stag movie he bought in France. He exhorts Pearl to go after her goals. When asked why she can't leave her family, Pearl replies that she wishes "they will just die."

Ruth discovers a movie guide Pearl stole from the theater, and the two fight vehemently over supper. During the ensuing physical argument, Pearl pushes her mother onto the kitchen fireplace, setting her clothes on fire and leaving Ruth with potentially fatal burns. While leaving her father in the kitchen, Pearl dragged Ruth down the basement. She runs away to the cinema, where she sleeps with the projectionist.

The projectionist takes Pearl back to the farm in the morning so she can get ready for the audition. He is bothered by the now maggot-infested roast pig Mitsy's mother had left for Ruth the day before, by the contradictions in what Pearl has told him, and by her theatrical antics. When he tries to leave, Pearl gets furious with him for leaving her and stabs him to death with a pitchfork. She then pushes his car into a pond with his body inside, where an alligator she has given the nickname Theda consumes his remains. Before strangling her father to death, Pearl dresses herself in one of Ruth's opulent gowns and dresses up her father.

At the chapel where the audition is being held, Pearl shows up. She performs a dance she thinks will wow the talent scouts, but is saddened when she is passed over because she is not young, blonde, or "all-American." Mitsy follows her home in an effort to cheer her up. A long confession is made by Pearl to Mitsy in the kitchen about her anger of Howard, who came from a wealthy background but insisted that the pair stay on her family's farm, and she also says that she was relieved when she miscarried his kid. She also admits to killing her parents and the projectionist, feeling uncomfortable and out of control, and enjoying doing violence. Then Pearl tricks a dumbfounded Mitsy into admitting that she had won the audition over Pearl. Pearl chases Mitsy down the driveway and axes her to death out of resentment that Mitsy won the audition.

Before coming downstairs and lying with a dead Ruth, Pearl dismembers Mitsy's body and gives her carcass to Theda. Pearl chooses to make amends for her wrongdoings by building a cozy house for Howard when he returns from the war after coming to the realization that her mother was right and that she should "make the best of what she has." The following morning, Howard shows up without warning. He is shocked to see Pearl's parents' remains in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the dead pig. Pearl gives him a long, hurting smile as she welcomes him.

In 2022, Pearl had its global premiere. Critics gave the movie favorable reviews, praising Goth's performance, West's screenplay and direction, and its homages to classic Hollywood movies like The Wizard of Oz from 1939 and Mary Poppins from 1964.

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