Pearl

Pearl

In 1918, 61 years before the events of X, Pearl, trapped on her family’s isolated Texas homestead, must tend to her infirmed 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.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thrillers
  • Stars: Mia Goth, Tandi Wright, David Corenswet, Emma Jenkins-Purro, Matthew Sunderland, Alistair Sewell, Lauren Stewart, Amelia Reid, Todd Rippon, Gabe McDonnell, Grace Acheson
  • Director: Ti West
 Comments
  • justahunch-70549 - 28 June 2024
    Even if you don't like horror, see this for Goth!
    I did not like X, so it took me a while to get around to this. Much to my surprise, it's pretty good. It's classified as a horror film and it sorta is, but it is mostly a study of a young woman going mad around the year 1918. There's not really much of a plot other that the lead character living on a remote farm wants more out of life and that life involves a desire for professional dancing. She has a stern and severe mother who does not approve and an extremely handicapped father, so life on the farm is not so swell. Dad seems like a major stoke victim, but it is never named. As I said, it's surprisingly pretty good, never boring, well photographed and directed, but above all Mia Goth in the lead gives some sort of awesome performance. Even in X I admired her, but here she shows some remarkable abilities and is a versatile talent that I cannot imagine not having a big future. This ain't bad.
  • johnspringer-95440 - 6 June 2024
    Inconsistent Character Study of a Killer
    Mia Goth delivers an impressive but somewhat misguided performance as the title character in this origin story for the main antagonist of Ti West's X. The movie is reasonably entertaining and intermittently funny. The imagery is sometimes gross; but the movie is never scary or horrifying because it fails to provide a convincing explanation for Pearl's pathology. Goth switches from "aw shucks" naive to calculating to deranged. Is she a cunning psychopath motivated by narcissism, envy and rage? Or is she an otherwise decent person spiraling into psychotic delusions? She seems to be neither and both at any given moment. Properly explored, either option would be chilling; but muddling them together make for a frustratingly inconsistent character. She's unpredictable but she's not realistic enough to be compelling.