Has there been a more exciting, nor entertaining surprise of the 2022 film year than Ti West and Mia Goth’s soon to be concluded trilogy of darkly comic and frequently frightening horrors starting earlier this year with X, written and directed by West alone, with a sublime dual performance from Goth. Only for the announcement to come that the terrifying character of Pearl was to receive her own prequel, or rather ‘x-traordinary origin story’ as the marketing would have it. With Goth now writing with West and beyond those two many other returning faces behind the camera also. Pearl was an exciting treat in concept and after viewing is a truly glorious piece of cinema in its own right.
So what has made Pearl in my eyes a better and more entertaining film than X? Well, I think it all comes down to degree of difficulty and also at the end of the day just how different Pearl as a film feels, aswell as of course personal taste. As a second part of a trilogy, it’s exciting and intriguing as a piece of continuation narrative, but as its own film Pearl is a thrilling old Hollywood tale, perverted and twisted into a darkly melodramatic and gloriously overwrought piece of horror-drama. A film that manages to in broad strokes balance the most difficult of genres in their own right into an outrageous masterpiece of the macabre, with musical elements aplenty when the film is at its most bombastic and the simplest of immovable objects and stillest frames photographing them when the film is at its most un-nerving. West here with Goth as his ultimate muse and partner in creative crime make a film that defies its own limitations and goes beyond what X went for, managing to be narrativley simpler and a more focussed character study, and yet thematically and scope-wise far more out-stretching. This paragraph has damn near been completely full of superlatives and yet I don’t think anything can much explain the wicked capability of West and Goth until one witnesses the film themselves. West is editor here too and manages to fuel the film with an at times experimental and usually deconstructive angle, especially when the film reaches its elliptical denouement following Goth’s truly astounding near 7 minute one frozen take monologue. West doesn’t let us look away, nor would any person who can stomach it, wish to.
Both Eliot Rocket as cinematographer and Tyler Bates as composer return here too, this time with Bates working with Tim Williams, with both adapting to this new world of film with open arms, fuelling this new film in every regard with a grander and more sumptuous style and tone. The film is old Hollywood in every facade regard and yet has a real darkness at its core that warps all that surround and envelop it. Beyond Goth, performance highlights are clear and constant; David Corenswet as the possibly good-natured projectionist is a figure to fuel Goth further, Tandi Wright as Pearl’s mother is a figure of cruelty and stubborn fury, with Mathew Sunderland in a completely dialogue-less part as Pearl’s father offering some of the best ‘eye acting’ I’ve ever seen, along with Emma Jenkins-Purro as a good-hearted girl who in the end is the fatal envy of our titular villainess and heroine. But everything you’ve heard when it comes to Goth is true, completely true and without hyperbole, she is an incredibly talented performer and this is the heightened extremism and haunted subtlety that makes this by far one of the best turns of the year, in any field, in any genre. Pearl is one of my most enjoyed film experiences of the year thus far and I frankly cannot wait to see it once more.
An absolutely glorious 9/10, so wonderfully attune to nearly every one of my specific loves that it seems bizarrely crafted for moi. West and Goth have both outdone themselves giving us a marvellous prequel and fuelling enough anticipation for the third entry that these two films will become some of my most watched in pure anticipation. This is John Waters if he made a pure horror feature, but it’s also an old Hollywood terrifying version of A Star is Born, but then at times it’s this pulpy romance of ‘the farmer’s daughter’. Pearl is homage and nostalgia and perversion, all of which is a concoction far from original, yet tastefully subverted and incredibly original and shocking. A marvellous and devilishly entertaining film for all.
P.S. RELEASE MOVIES ALL OVER THE WORLD AT THE SAME TIME! Don’t make me look for movies in less than wholesome ways, if you know what I mean! I will pay for your movies, just let everybody watch movies. Please, I’ve gotten over the big screen angle, I hoped it wouldn’t be so, but battles like this are lost. But just let me watch your films. You released X everywhere? So why not the bloody prequel that deserves the same raves?
- -Thomas Carruthers
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