PEARL
****
Director: Ti West
Screenplay: Ti West & Mia Goth, based on characters created by Ti West.
Principal cast:
Mia Goth
David Corenswet
Tandi Wright
Matthew Sunderland
Emma Jenkins-Purro
Alistair Sewell
Country: USA/Canada/NZ
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 103 mins.
Australian release date: 16 March 2023.
People who enjoyed Ti West’s knowing slasher pic X will get a kick out of his new movie Pearl, an origin story about the formative years of the demented old crone we met in his earlier film. As in that one, the protagonist is a wannabe actress but, while Maxine in X managed to leave the blood-soaked farm, poor, crazy Pearl misses out on her opportunity to make it big in the wide world of entertainment. Both characters are played by rising star Mia Goth and she turns in a stellar performance in Pearl. Goth explains, “The two women are similar in terms of their ambition and solid belief in themselves. They are fuelled and driven by the notion that they are destined for greater things.” Now, we learn how Pearl became to be like she is/was; I guess we’ll learn the fate of X’s lead in West’s next planned production, MaXXXine.
It’s 1918 and Pearl (Goth) is living on the same Texas farm that was the setting for X, waiting for her young husband Harold (Alistair Sewell) to return from his service in the First World War and dreaming of being “the biggest star the world has ever known.” Her daily existence, however, is anything but glamorous - her catatonic father (Matthew Sunderland) is wheelchair-bound and her German-speaking mother (Tandi Wright) is a God-fearing tyrant who bullies her into performing her chores. When Pearl goes into town to buy supplies, she meets the handsome projectionist of the local picture-house (David Corenswet), who encourages her to follow her dreams, so when she learns from her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) that auditions are going to be held for a role as a chorus girl in a touring show, she convinces herself that this is her big chance to break away. But dreams don’t always come true and Pearl is not a girl who takes rejection well.
West is a director with a sense of style and an obvious love of Hollywood and in both the films in this series he has acknowledged movies from earlier periods of studio production. In X it was the Seventies he referenced and now he has harked back to an even earlier period, paying tribute to the first Technicolor films and doffing his cap to classics like The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins. It’s whacky but it works, adding nuance to a plot that could have come across as generic. The old-fashioned look of the movie’s opening and the excellent score also add to the period feel. Like X, Pearl was shot in New Zealand/Aotearoa (in fact, they were filmed back-to-back) and features a number of actors from that country, in particular, our murderous anti-heroine’s parents, sister-in-law and husband and, presumably, most of the extras. You wouldn’t know it, though, and all the speaking parts feature convincingly appropriate accents. Goth, on the other hand, was raised in England and hers is the standout performance in Pearl; towards the end of the film, she delivers a knockout eight-minute monologue in which the camera barely moves, remaining fixed on her face in a tight close-up as she reveals her innermost thoughts and apprehensions to an increasingly alarmed Mitsy. It’s stunning.
Pearl is a cut above (oops!) many slasher flicks, exhibiting wit and intelligence (the script alludes to the COVID pandemic in its nod to the Spanish flu that was prevalent after WWI), albeit within the gory confines of its genre. By mimicking the melodramatic “women’s films” of the Fifties, West and Goth have even managed to make Pearl someone you can almost feel sorry for, despite her homicidal tendencies. That’s no mean feat.
Screenplay: Ti West & Mia Goth, based on characters created by Ti West.
Principal cast:
Mia Goth
David Corenswet
Tandi Wright
Matthew Sunderland
Emma Jenkins-Purro
Alistair Sewell
Country: USA/Canada/NZ
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 103 mins.
Australian release date: 16 March 2023.
People who enjoyed Ti West’s knowing slasher pic X will get a kick out of his new movie Pearl, an origin story about the formative years of the demented old crone we met in his earlier film. As in that one, the protagonist is a wannabe actress but, while Maxine in X managed to leave the blood-soaked farm, poor, crazy Pearl misses out on her opportunity to make it big in the wide world of entertainment. Both characters are played by rising star Mia Goth and she turns in a stellar performance in Pearl. Goth explains, “The two women are similar in terms of their ambition and solid belief in themselves. They are fuelled and driven by the notion that they are destined for greater things.” Now, we learn how Pearl became to be like she is/was; I guess we’ll learn the fate of X’s lead in West’s next planned production, MaXXXine.
It’s 1918 and Pearl (Goth) is living on the same Texas farm that was the setting for X, waiting for her young husband Harold (Alistair Sewell) to return from his service in the First World War and dreaming of being “the biggest star the world has ever known.” Her daily existence, however, is anything but glamorous - her catatonic father (Matthew Sunderland) is wheelchair-bound and her German-speaking mother (Tandi Wright) is a God-fearing tyrant who bullies her into performing her chores. When Pearl goes into town to buy supplies, she meets the handsome projectionist of the local picture-house (David Corenswet), who encourages her to follow her dreams, so when she learns from her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) that auditions are going to be held for a role as a chorus girl in a touring show, she convinces herself that this is her big chance to break away. But dreams don’t always come true and Pearl is not a girl who takes rejection well.
West is a director with a sense of style and an obvious love of Hollywood and in both the films in this series he has acknowledged movies from earlier periods of studio production. In X it was the Seventies he referenced and now he has harked back to an even earlier period, paying tribute to the first Technicolor films and doffing his cap to classics like The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins. It’s whacky but it works, adding nuance to a plot that could have come across as generic. The old-fashioned look of the movie’s opening and the excellent score also add to the period feel. Like X, Pearl was shot in New Zealand/Aotearoa (in fact, they were filmed back-to-back) and features a number of actors from that country, in particular, our murderous anti-heroine’s parents, sister-in-law and husband and, presumably, most of the extras. You wouldn’t know it, though, and all the speaking parts feature convincingly appropriate accents. Goth, on the other hand, was raised in England and hers is the standout performance in Pearl; towards the end of the film, she delivers a knockout eight-minute monologue in which the camera barely moves, remaining fixed on her face in a tight close-up as she reveals her innermost thoughts and apprehensions to an increasingly alarmed Mitsy. It’s stunning.
Pearl is a cut above (oops!) many slasher flicks, exhibiting wit and intelligence (the script alludes to the COVID pandemic in its nod to the Spanish flu that was prevalent after WWI), albeit within the gory confines of its genre. By mimicking the melodramatic “women’s films” of the Fifties, West and Goth have even managed to make Pearl someone you can almost feel sorry for, despite her homicidal tendencies. That’s no mean feat.