Pearl

(2022) *****

Here comes the most outrageous thing I've ever said in Horrorthon review: as of 2022, Pearl isn't just my favorite horror film of all time; it's one of my favorite films overall. In its disdain for horror as a genre, the Academy straight up *robbed* Mia Goth of a well-deserved Oscar nomination for best actress. 

This is the second film in Ti West's excellent X Trilogy, and I feel about Pearl vis a vis X and Maxxxine, the way I feel about films like The Road Warrior, The Godfather II, and Evil Dead II, vis a vis their place in their own trilogies: it's a massive expansion of filmmaking scope over its predecessor in the trilogy, and with hindsight after the release of the third, remains the best of the bunch. 

If X is West channeling a grainy polaroid, and Maxxxine is West channeling early 80's Brian De Palma, then Pearl is West channeling an Edward Hopper painting. Blue skies and pink clouds soar across the screen over the simple industrious beauty of American farmhouses and endless golden cornfields. As the film opens and the first few bars of the opening score play out, we're hearing symphonic strains worthy of comparison to Aaron Copland or maybe to John Williams's score for Superman...and then the theme evolves; not by jump or jolt, but a nonetheless unsupported change in the harmony takes place, as if something important has been left out of the development. Then things get weird and dark. And then back. And so on.

All of that is by way of saying that if the score were a person, it'd be Pearl herself; at a glance, simply and unpretentiously pretty, but observe her behavior for some time, and one senses that there are gigantic gaps in the narrative she's telling herself about her life on the farm she so desperately wants to escape, and about what life will be like in the big wide world outside once she finally escapes it. We spend no more than a couple minutes watching her twirl about the family barn, idly chatting with the family cow, before we realize that there is something awfully wrong with Pearl, as she savagely pitchforks a goose who wanders in through the barn door. Why does she do it? Because she can. Because she's already holding the pitchfork. Because nobody is watching. There's no telling how many animals she's slaughtered before with nobody around to judge her for it, but this doesn't feel remotely like her first, nor does it entirely feel like she'd talk herself out of doing it to a person should the opportunity arise one ordinary American day.

Meanwhile she gets along famously with people who don't see enough of her to encounter the inconsistencies. She flirts with the handsome Bohemian projectionist at the theater in town, and she's conspiritorially chummy with her sister-in-law Mitsy. A lot of my favorite acting choices Mia Goth makes in this movie are when Mitsy is around. Mitsy represents everything Pearl wishes she has (and ironically already *has* at hand just by being friends with Mitsy): an impish sense of fun, confidence, charm, and above all *effortlessness*. The look on Pearl's face when Mitsy is gossiping with her is what you'd see on the face of a shy 1st grader hanging out with a friendly, and way cooler 2nd grader. Awe. Gratitude just to be included in the hijinx for once.

But the people who spend enough time around Pearl eventually start to see the missing pieces. Observe this exchange between her and her mother Ruth:

 P: If I go to this audition and I don't get picked, then I'll come home and I'll never speak of it again, I swear. But I have to know that I tried, or I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. Please mama, you have no idea what I'm capable of.

R: Oh yes, I do. I've seen the things you've done, in private, when you believe that no one's watching. You think others won't notice?

The pieces come apart faster and faster as the story goes on, as we know they must. And the whole thing culminates in one of the most fascinating monologues I've ever watched in my life, and *the* most fascinating mid-credit scene I think I will ever see. I've spoken in other reviews of movies I've loved about the feeling of dread at having to review them, not wanting to undersell their brilliance, and I've never felt that more strongly than I do about Pearl. I'm in thrall with this film, and I'm relieved to finally finish a few meager lines of text explaining why. Ti West and Mia Goth each already boast an impressive body of work, and I believe when all is said and done, Pearl will rank among the best things either of them ever do. This is a clever, gorgeous, heartbreaking, and brutal piece of work.