Pearl – Review

The film Pearl is a prequel to X, but also stars Mia Goth, just this time playing a younger version of the character Pearl, who was an old woman in X and was set in 1979. Pearl takes us to 1918 and is a much different experience from X. This film is more of a psychological horror, focusing on a young woman’s sanity.

The young Pearl (Goth) fantasizes on the small farm she lives on. About what? Virtually everything, but mostly about dreams of being a star under the bright lights. She dances in the barn, imagining a grand play or ballroom, but her German mother Ruth (Wright) busts that up quickly by sending her to don overalls and feed the farm animals.

She tells the pig, Charlie, someday he won’t see her again. She’s special! She goes back to twirling, holding hay and distributing it to chomping pigs before picking up a pitchfork and going back to her grand starlet fantasies. Everyone will know her name!

This actually seems somewhat normal for a super small-town farm girl, but then into the barn waddles Mr. Goose, shuffling up a storm. A perfect meal for Ada, the local alligator! Hmmm, okay Pearl is not as innocent as she may appear…

The movie continues as Pearl goes about her days and attempts to free herself from monotony, boredom and her mother’s influences. While a lot of it is normal behavior, Pearl is anything but by the end. Her invalid father (Sunderland) is present, but also not, so her mind reels with nothing but her overbearing mother.

The film is a descent into madness presented with a sweeping and classical backdrop full of gorgeous color and incorporating intriguing fantasies. The small cast drives the short film with no trouble, similar to X. While X was a twist on slashers, and Pearl does contain some violence and psychotic behavior, this one really does play quite differently.

Mia Goth is great in this while doing an even wider range than X. The other few players are also quite believable, which is necessary for such an interesting script. This film almost feels nice and whimsical at moments, before reminding you that yes, indeed this is not a nice movie about a nice person. The script gets pretty bizarre and chases Pearl down her psychological rabbit hole.

Pearl is a solid prequel to X and should be seen before heading into the third in the series, MaXXXine, which itself is a true follow-up to X’s story.