Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Dreams and Nightmares: Film Review of Pearl
★★★★☆
Last week, I wrote about the film X, the first in Ti West’s X Film Series. That film is not only a tribute to some of the great slasher films of the past (most notably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), it is also a surprisingly touching examination of lost love—albeit self-love—and the vagaries of old age. The second in West’s series, Pearl, is a prequel to the first film that delves into the titular character’s early life, and the factors that turned her into the murderous psychopath she eventually becomes.
The film opens with young Pearl (Mia Goth) working on the family farm while entertaining dreams of becoming a movie star. One of the first sequences follows her as she feeds the animals in the barn, singing to them and acting as if they were her fans. When “Mr. Goose” saunters into the barn, she inexplicably dispatches the poor creature with a pitchfork and disposes of it by throwing the carcass into the back pond where Theda, the resident gator, takes care of its disposal.
The girl aspiring to stardom trope, seen in classics like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, A Star is Born, and more recently in La La Land, Boogie Nights, and Babylon, is beautifully conflated with the horror genre here. And while the dark side of stardom is explored in these films, West brilliantly weaves these rags-to-riches narratives with psychological elements of the elevated horror genre.
Scenes almost burst out of the frame in the saturated colors of a Technicolor style of cinematography reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, resulting in a pallet that looks like what director Ti West termed a sort of “demented Disney film”. While emphasizing Pearl’s youth and innocent dreaminess, this choice of film stock also provides a striking contrast to her psychopathic behavior.
In one sequence, after seeing a film at the local theater, Pearl spies a scarecrow on a pole in a remote cornfield. She runs to him, dismounts him from his perch, and—very creepily—starts to dance with him. Pearl kisses the eerily realistic face of the scarecrow before pleasuring herself on it. The parallels between a young girl dressed in a blue blouse and overalls (Dorothy?) “befriending” a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield is eerily and—in this case, perversely reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz.
During the course of the film, Pearl’s frustration at being stuck on the family farm living with her domineering mother (Tandi Wright) and invalid father (Matthew Sunderland) is only relieved watching movies the local theater where she strikes up an acquaintance with the projectionist (David Corenswet) that soon becomes sexual. Pearl views him not only as a lover but as the only way out of her predicament. Pearl is not only tasked with doing the family farm chores but with washing, feeding, and cleaning her father. At one point, she wheels him down to the pond, nearly dumping him into the water as a snack for her carnivorous pet Theda.
Her mother is stern, acerbic, and will not allow Pearl to even entertain thoughts of leaving the homestead. Pearl’s husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) is overseas, fighting in the first World War. Theda’s only friend is her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) with whom she secretly attends an audition for a dance troupe. Mitsy is bubbly, vivacious, and considerate; everything Pearl is not.
Things come to a head for Pearl when her mother discovers she plans to leave. The two argue, then fight, and then, in a freak accident, the mother is badly burned. Pearl throws her into the basement and then runs to town where she has sex with her projectionist friend. He drives her home the next morning and becomes increasingly concerned at her weird behavior and attempts to leave. Pearl kills him with a pitchfork and disposes of him in Theda’s pond before smothering her father with a pillow and then going to the audition with Mitsy, where things do not go so well for Pearl.
She returns home with Mitsy to whom she confesses her ambitions, her frustrations, and finally her crimes. Goth’s performance here is a brilliantly executed soliloquy. West keeps the camera on her face, denying the audience Mitsy’s reactions to her friend’s crimes—until the end. Finally, in a grisly scene reminiscent of both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre dinner scene and Psycho.
As in the first installment in the X Film Series, Pearl examines issues of isolation, frustration, and loneliness by conflating a starry-eyed young girl narrative with graphic horror. As in the older incarnation of Pearl in X, young Pearl only wants love and attention and attempts to seek this personal gratification through fame and adulation. Coupling this typical narrative trope with a psychopathic personality, West is not only able to pay homage to great moments in cinematic history, Pearl becomes the embodiment of the dark side of ambition and hope. At the end, when she becomes reconciled to her fate and her husband returns, the closing credits close in on the tsunami of emotions crossing her face. It is a remarkable moment. Goth’s portrayal of Pearl in this moment is a perfect capsule of everything she is and wants to be—a little girl who wants to be loved and who will do anything to get it.
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