Ti West returns to the X film series with his prequel Pearl, a stylish but uneven snapshot of a young woman’s descent into madness.
★★★✰✰
All Pearl wants is to be famous. Is that too much to ask? Thanks to an ongoing war, dangerous pandemic, prison-esque home life and, perhaps most importantly, a lack of talent, Pearl’s quest to become a star proves trickier than she anticipated. Her frustration at her lot in life sets in motion the gruesome course of events in Pearl, Ti West’s X prequel and second film in what will be his eventual horror trilogy. Despite the heightened surrealism and grisly gore, West takes the story in a slightly more serious direction than Pearl’s predecessor, painting a surprisingly painful portrait of a tortured woman. The film is sometimes strangely tepid and uneven, but Pearl doesn’t hold back when it reaches its eventual unhinged barbarism.
In X, we meet Mia Goth’s character as an old woman; in origin story Pearl, we meet her in 1918 as a young woman living with her parents on the same farm where the events of X take place. We know this place well: there’s the cutesy farmhouse, red barn, idyllic fields, and even the familiar snout of Theda the alligator who lives in a nearby lake. Pearl spends her days sneaking off to the local cinema to watch films such as Palace Follies, whilst back at the farm, she performs for the only audience she has: the cows and pigs.
Pearl’s life is far from pleasant, however, with her mother ruling the house with an iron fist. Her fully paralysed father is unable to offer any rebuke to his wife or help to his daughter. These issues convene to create an existence of sadness, despite Pearl’s smiley demeanour. In both films, West draws inspiration from nostalgic horror; he gleefully splashes the 1910s setting with classic 1980s Americana stylings and slasher elements. Pearl’s atmosphere is a surreal, sun-kissed nightmare of oversaturated colours, and its world a vivid, technicolour-inspired backdrop to the horrific events that take place.
With Goth’s sugar-sweet performance, Pearl becomes a utopic postcard of life on a sunny American farm–something that makes her descent into madness that much more shocking. Similar to the suburbs of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, there is a darkness bubbling away very close to the surface of this picturesque place. The heavily stylised tone of Pearl works for the most part, although it eventually becomes mildly grating. In particular, Tyler Bates and Tim Williams’ sweeping, generally impressive original score is overused to the point of annoyance, a near-constant background presence that occasionally diminishes the dramatic engagement of scenes. However, West generally keeps the momentum up throughout Pearl, despite a protracted setup. When Pearl–at first, all smiles and niceness–kisses and makes out with a scarecrow, we know all is not well.
In Goth’s Pearl, a true horror icon is born. The actor flits from precious farmhand to murderous psychopath in a flash, often in the space of the same scene. We see every snot bubble, every rolling teardrop, every vein in her neck when she reminds characters she’s going to be a star. West holds the camera on these moments with an extended gleefulness. A dance performance and final monologue stand out as some of Goth’s best career moments to date. Pearl lacks true depth in its portrayal of the titular character, but her psychopathic tendencies and need to escape her life highlight clearly why she does what she does.
West’s style doesn’t fit as seamlessly with Pearl’s more serious tone. Pearl is no heavy drama and still finds humour amongst the surrealism, but West’s playful style can be jarring at times when viewed alongside this challenging character study. The gore elements of Pearl are gorgeously ghastly, with a late split-screen moment a particular highlight; in comparison, other scenes seem to fizzle out with little weight to them. This varying quality makes for a slightly perplexing, but overall very stimulating horror flick, one bathed in bloodied slasher nostalgia and with one of the year’s best performances at its centre in Goth.
The Verdict
Both as a tribute to slashers of the past and as a follow-up to the successful X, Pearl sings. West’s overly stylised world works in tandem with Goth’s unhinged performance, but also results in Pearl’s jarring tone and slightly stunted narrative.
Words by William Stottor
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