Pearl (2022)
Directed by Ti West
Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.
6 connections found
View:
6 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Pearl to
“MaXXXine” is built on the bones of sex-worker vigilante cult classics like “Angel,” propaganda videos about the Satanic Panic, and just about everything on the notorious Video Nasties list. It’s not the first film to invoke those cultural curios, but coming hot on the heels of West’s acclaimed horror films “X” and “Pearl,” it seems “MaXXXine” (the third film in this horror trilogy) has a good chance of making films like “Vice Squad” popular again.
…ejected Pearl and put Maxxxine straight in…
It could easily be argued that X and Pearl were, yes, genre movies with resonant subtext.
Pearl recalling Old Hollywood with lush technicolour…
What made Pearl so innovative was that it enriched the titular character and gave her thematic reasoning for her forthcoming murderous actions.
Regardless of whether you prefer the DIY approach and homage to low-budget ’70s exploitation cinema in X (2022) or the Technicolor terrors and Golden Age aesthetics of its prequel Pearl (2023), everything comes together in a satisfying, neon-bright thematic bow in MaXXXine.
Instead of pulling his inspirations from the late ’60s and early ’70s genre films, this time around, they come from the pictures made during Hollywood’s Golden Age and the technicolor phenomena — “The Wizard of Oz,” “Psycho,” “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and the melodramas of Douglas Sirk (“All That Heaven Allows,” “Magnificent Obsession”).
X war eine Hommage an die Slasher- und Pornofilme der Siebziger, während Pearl mehr mit Wizard of Oz , What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? und Douglas-Sirk-Melodramen gemein hat.
“Strange Darling” can do straightforward brutality with the best of them. And yet, throughout the film, the actors’ playful portrayal — dipping in and out of an ever-shifting dynamic that seems too complicated to write down, let alone embody — recalls something like Mia Goth’s dazzling performance in “Pearl.” Fitzgerald tests her endurance in some delicately drawn-out one-shots, while Gallner makes his bid for small-time scream king armed with a shotgun and an assuredness that feels like its own assault.
There are plenty of movies that have covered this ground in cleverer ways such as “Audition” (1999), “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” (2013), “Siren” (2018), “X” (2022), “Pearl” (2022), “Titane” (2021).
Goth can be a powerful force on screen, but roles like “Pearl” tap into a crazed energy that can’t help but break free in every moment.
The Pearl star plays Elizabeth, Victor’s brother’s fiancée, and ends up taking a shine to the abomination lurking in her future brother-in-law’s undercroft.
Mia Goth of “Pearl”…
Mia Goth who is known for her performance in Pearl and Infinity Pool, plays a vital role…
Mia Goth (Pearl)…
Mia Goth, de otro clásico del terror reciente: Pearl…
Advertisement
MaXXXine likewise undermines the core strength of X and Pearl (both 2022), which were, for all the gimmicky pastiche employed by writer-director Ti West, credible underdog fantasies that knew they had a star on their hands with Mia Goth.
If you liked Mia Goth in "Pearl," you're going to love Inde Navarrette.