Jumping from one beloved horror franchise to one in bloom. I have been anticipated this movie for months! ‘When will it get here?!’, I’d whinge. ‘Mia Goff is a marvel’, is all I could ever find in response. If only I could see this movie for myself, then I wouldn’t have to live vicariously! 😩 Well, Australia has finally come to its senses, and given the people what they want! Well, me – I’m a people. If Pearl is a shade of surprise like X was last year, then I’m in for a good time.
Preceding the events of X, Pearl (Mia Goff) is a twenty-something-year-old helping around the farmhouse, with her stern mother and infirm father while her husband is off at war. But Pearl’s dreams are bigger than just rural work, and the life of a dancing girl in the moving pictures is the life for her. Pearl’s sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) whispers to Pearl about a dance audition at the local church, spurring an eager obsession to attend that she must keep secret from her disparaging mother Ruth (Tandi Wright). For a dreamy girl surrounded by a picturesque countryside, Pearl is also prone to quick violent outbursts that promise to spill over into a murder surge before we reach the end of our movie’s runtime… Ssshhh!
Well, I don’t know if Pearl will make for a memorable movie in the years that follow, but it sure made me happy in the moment. As a prequel for the cut-throat near-centurion in X, this movie doesn’t fill in as much of Pearl’s backstory as I would’ve expected, and so the story is not as meaty as I would’ve hoped. Following the movie’s gruesome events, we don’t see how Howard ever learned to accept his wife for who she is, and we don’t see how Pearl’s perversions manifest to the point of keeping a sex prisoner in the basement 🤷♂️ In the original, I also assumed that Pearl was bisexual too; I thought that Pearl was out to nab Maxine to inflict some sexual deviancy on her, but I suppose that was never really explicit, and it was only in my own head regarding the motives I was imposing on these characters. But this movie is what it is, and it’s not about what I want anymore – it’s about making the best of what I have 🤓 At least Pearl does account for the ease with which Pearl murders, showing the first time she snaps, and the catalyst for her ambitions getting crushed. Her first forays into show business are dismal, which will eventually lead to a life confined to the farmhouse, but it also appears as though those who crossed Pearl did as much in her own head, which again, I thought might’ve been more confounding or concrete in reality, but Pearl simply be crazy. I like the connection the movie makes to the porn industry though, albeit small, but linking to X, and showing how porn and profiteers have manifested across different time periods.
This movie’s second-best quality is it’s mixing of genres to create the biggest pop. Of course, with a brighter colour grading than X, this movie is evoking golden age movies, with a most prominent nod to The Wizard of Oz. Ti West is certainly an intuitive filmmaker, and the repurposing or adaptation of many production and camera techniques was a standout in X, and it makes this movie stand out again. That final kill, with Pearl stalking Mitsy down the driveway, has latched its way into my mind and will stay there for a while, just for being so terrifyingly simple. And, this movie is creepy – obviously cleaning dead bodies for the dinner table is meant to be nothing but so, but I also like how psychologically, we follow Pearl around, and every now and then she will do something troubling but she’s mostly a regular girl with routine fantasies, until it all comes to a head when Ruth makes a strong case for how abnormal she is, culminating in that frizzling climax on a stormy night.
But the movie’s biggest asset… of course, it’s Mia Goff. Ti West must thank his lucky stars to have come across Goff, who seems so willing and able to do anything put in front of her. Not only is she psychotic and sexy, in both extremes of perversion, but she flips so quickly and subtly from emotional states to make her triumph an absolute delight to watch. At one point, Pearl is bleeding out her soul to Mitsy and you realise, “this is still one take!”, that has to have gone on for more than two minutes – the camera just doesn’t need to cut from her, and it’s the sort’ve craft that gives a nerd-boner a nerd boner. Then there’s the final shot, below the credits, that throws down the challenge to Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday for an intense staring contest – game recognising game at least, from the former co-stars. Goff is not as sexual as she was in X, but the movie does give origin to old Pearl’s dancing, and Goff is seamless in her execution. I remember I potted Pearl’s impromptu dancing in my X review, stating that, as a symbol of ‘freeing up’ it was already a bit played out since Joker and Spencer did it too. But no, Pearl gives her movements a solid origin, enough to make me shut my pie hole – or thimble my fingers; whatever the typing equivalent is to talking 🙃
Pearl also goes to show the benefit of filming a follow-up project back-to-back with the first, in that the set avoids needing to be recreated or rebooked. The farmhouse setting from X reappears as if brand new, and further kudos goes to the movie’s production team for making it so. But, as I’ve already said, I’m not sure I instantly love Pearl, as this movie feels more like a chapter of Pearl’s origin instead of an entire prequel, yet I hear there’s a third movie in the works, entitled MaXXXine, so I wonder if Pearl will appear again, in flashback or the sort, somehow there. I’m certainly curious to see what West and Goff can achieve next, with Pearl doing enough to at least keep my appetite whet. I’m also curious to find out how much influence Goff has had on the writing of this movie, as she’s given a writing credit – is it a sign of a generous respect between writer and actress, since Goff helped shape the character, or genuinely something more? Either way, I’m so glad Goff has this vehicle to ride to showcase her talent, and I know I said she was going to be a star, not after seeing The Cure for Wellness mind you, but yes after Emma. – she’s well on her way! Huzzah!
3.0
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