Dir: Ti West. Cast: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, & Alistair Sewell. 2022
As much as I love X, I was unprepared for how much I would fall for Pearl. Set 61 years earlier than X, Pearl gives us the backstory of my favourite murdering granny, set in the era of the influenza pandemic in rural Texas.
I love how West and co-writer Goth revisit and payoff themes, elements and incidents from X here. I love that they draw a connection between the height of the COVID pandemic with the earlier influenza pandemic. I love that Goth has an opportunity to really own her character here, to inhabit her, to write her, to co-create her. I love how Pearl’s parents know they are housing a psychopath in the making, and that this, to them, is Pearl’s true X-Factor. I love that West took the movie in a different direction than its predecessor by drawing inspiration from movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. I love Goth’s performance here (she should have been handed an Oscar), and that of the other actors. I love the world this movie creates, I love its atmosphere. I love that, for me, it evokes the filmography of Curtis Harrington. I love that we get to see the spark in the young Pearl that, by movie’s end, is just starting to be snuffed out, only to be replaced by something much more lethal and sad.
West and Goth have just wrapped shooting on MaXXXine as I write this, the third and final film in the X trilogy. It follows Pearl’s mirror image Maxine from the first film as she tries to make it big in 1980s Hollywood. I, for one, can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment