Pearl

Pearl (subtitled An X-traordinary Origin Story) is a 2022 American psychological horror film directed, produced, and edited by Ti West, and co-written by West and Mia Goth. It is the second installment in West's X film series and a prequel to X (2022). Goth reprises her role as the title character, with a supporting cast featuring David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, and Emma Jenkins-Purro. Pearl serves as an origin story for the title villain, whose fervent aspiration to become a movie star led to her committing violent acts on her family's Texas homestead in 1918.
West began co-writing a prequel script stemming from his collaboration with Goth while filming X. Motivated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema, filming started in New Zealand immediately after the first film, using X sets and the Avatar: The Way of Water crew and taking pandemic safety precautions. Pearl drew inspiration from the works of Douglas Sirk, Technicolor films like The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Mary Poppins (1964), and Disney films. It had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2022, and was released in theaters in the United States on September 16, 2022, by A24. The film grossed over $10 million and received positive reviews from critics, with Goth's performance receiving universal acclaim.
A direct sequel to X, titled MaXXXine, was released on July 5, 2024, with Goth reprising her second role from the first film.
==Plot==
In 1918, Pearl is a young woman living with her German immigrant parents on their farm in Texas, while her husband, Howard, serves in World War I. Her father is infirm and paralyzed, and her strict mother, Ruth, insists that she help care for both him and the farm as they isolate themselves to protect against the Spanish flu pandemic. Pearl aspires to be a chorus girl or a film star, which Ruth disapproves of, and chafes under the isolation. Pearl also shows signs of psychopathy. She abuses her father in secret and kills animals, which she feeds to an alligator she nicknamed Theda.
One day while visiting town, Pearl meets a projectionist who takes a liking to her. After returning to the farm, Pearl continues to show signs of mental disturbance as she dances with a scarecrow in a cornfield and masturbates with it. During supper, Ruth berates Pearl for her behavior and withholds her food.
Pearl hears from Mitsy, her wealthy sister-in-law, of an audition to find new dancers for a troupe around the state, and envisions it as her ticket out of spending her life living on the farm and having to care for her father. She later visits the projectionist, who shows her the illicit stag film A Free Ride and encourages her to pursue her dreams. Pearl comments that she cannot abandon her family and she says, "If only they would just die."
That night, Ruth and Pearl get into an argument over dinner as she reveals that she knows about Pearl visiting the movies. Pearl confesses she wants to audition and asks for Ruth's permission, to which she declares Pearl as her biggest failure. An altercation erupts during which Pearl shoves her mother against the hearth, causing her dress to catch fire. As she burns, Pearl pours boiling water onto her to douse the flames and then drags her into the basement while leaving her father alone in the room. She then flees to the theater, where she has sex with the projectionist.
The following morning, the projectionist drives Pearl home to prepare for the audition. However, he is disturbed by her sudden agitated behavior, as well as the sight of a rotting pig that her mother-in-law left for Ruth the day before. As he tries to leave, Pearl erupts into a fit of rage at the perceived abandonment and stabs him to death with a pitchfork. She pushes his car into a pond, where Theda eats his remains. Pearl dresses herself in one of Ruth's Belle Époque gowns and dresses up her father before smothering him to death using a pillow cover.
Pearl arrives at the church to attend the audition. She thinks her dance performance will impress the talent scouts, but is rejected for not being young, blonde, or "all-American". Mitsy accompanies her home in an attempt to console her, which results in Pearl launching into a lengthy confession regarding many things, from resentment toward her husband and having an affair to killing animals, her parents and the projectionist. Pearl then coerces a stunned Mitsy into confessing that she won the audition, although she did not. As Mitsy tries to leave, Pearl chases her down the driveway and kills her with an axe.
Pearl dismembers Mitsy's body and feeds the remains to Theda, then goes into the basement and lies next to Ruth's corpse. She decides to atone for her crimes by creating a home for Howard.
Some time later, Howard returns and is greeted with the long-decomposed bodies of Pearl's parents seated at the dining table around the rotting feast. As Howard stares in horror, Pearl greets him with a protracted, pained smile, saying, "I'm so happy you're home."
==Cast==
== Marketing ==
A teaser trailer was screened at the SXSW Film Festival, following screening of the first film. The footage accompanied the theatrical release of X. In July 2022, the first trailer was released with the marketing tagline of "an X-traordinary Origin Story", referring to the previous installment.
== Release ==
Pearl had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2022, and was released in theaters in the United States on September 16, 2022.
===Home media===
The film was released on VOD on October 25, 2022, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 15, 2022.
== Reception ==
===Box office ===
In the United States and Canada, Pearl was released alongside The Woman King and See How They Run, and was projected to gross around $4 million from 2,900 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.3 million on its first day and went on to debut to $3.1 million, finishing third at the box office. It made $1.92 million in its second weekend, finishing fifth at the box office.
===Critical response===
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 211 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Pearl finds Ti West squeezing fresh gore out of the world he created with X – and once again benefiting from a brilliant Mia Goth performance." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave the film a 75% overall positive score, with 54% saying they would definitely recommend it.
Reviewing the film following its Venice Film Festival premiere, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised West's direction and Goth's "grandiose performance", assigning it a perfect rating of five stars and remarking: "Perhaps I shouldn't have enjoyed Pearl as much as I did: but it's clever, limber, gruesome and brutally well acted. A gem." In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney described it as a "cleverly packaged pandemic production with narrative echoes of that global anxiety", praising the screenplay, cinematography, score, and Goth's performance—which he compares to that of American actress Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980). In a year-end retrospective for Daily Grindhouse, Preston Fassel named the film as the best horror movie of 2022 as well as "the best film of the year, period, and a bona fide cinematic classic that deserves Criterion status ASAP." In a negative review, Ewan Gleadow of Cult Following wrote that while West "doubles down on what made X such a chilling feature and consolidates what he is good at", the film ultimately "feels like a weak parody of the MGM days of The Wizard of Oz." Similarly, Derek Smith of Slant Magazine thought that, while The Wizard of Oz references were "purposeful", they lacked "follow through", creating an impression that the film is more focused on showcasing its "cleverness" rather than enhancing its narrative or character depth.
Filmmaker Martin Scorsese was reportedly impressed by the film, calling it "mesmerizing" and stating that it was "powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema". The New York Times named the character of Pearl one of the 93 most stylish "people" of 2022, highlighting her "blood red dress, lacy blue bow, smudged makeup, boots … and ax".
===Accolades===
Award 	Date of ceremony 	Category 	Recipient(s) 	Result	
Toronto International Film Festival 	September 18, 2022	People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness	Pearl 	 	
Sitges Film Festival 	October 15, 2022 	Best Feature Length Film 	Pearl 	 	
Sitges Film Festival 	October 15, 2022 	Best Direction 	Ti West 	 	
Sitges Film Festival 	October 15, 2022 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
Boston Society of Film Critics 	December 11, 2022 	Best Cinematography 	Eliot Rockett 	 	
Chicago Film Critics Association 	December 14, 2022 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	December 18, 2022 	Best Horror Film 	Pearl 	 	
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	December 18, 2022 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle	January 9, 2023 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
Austin Film Critics Association 	January 10, 2023 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
Seattle Film Critics Society 	January 17, 2023 	Best Actress in a Leading Role 	Mia Goth 	 	
Seattle Film Critics Society 	January 17, 2023 	Best Villain 	Pearl (portrayed by Mia Goth)	 	
Online Film Critics Society 	January 23, 2023 	Best Actress 	Mia Goth 	 	
Bram Stoker Award 	June 17, 2023 	Superior Achievement in a Screenplay 	Mia Goth & Ti West 	 	
Independent Spirit Awards 	March 4, 2023 	Best Lead Performance 	Mia Goth 	 	
Independent Spirit Awards 	March 4, 2023 	Best Cinematography 	Eliot Rockett 	 	
Critics' Choice Super Awards 	March 16, 2023 	Best Horror Movie 	Pearl 	 	
Critics' Choice Super Awards 	March 16, 2023 	Best Actress in a Horror Movie 	Mia Goth 	 	
Critics' Choice Super Awards 	March 16, 2023 	Best Villain in a Movie 	Mia Goth 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Wide Release Movie 	Pearl 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Lead Performance 	Mia Goth 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Screenplay 	Mia Goth and Ti West 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Cinematography 	Eliot Rockett 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Score 	Tyler Bates and Tim Williams 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	May 21, 2023 	Best Costume Design 	Malgosia Turzanska 	 	
Saturn Awards 	February 4, 2024 	Best Independent Film 	Pearl 	 	
Saturn Awards 	February 4, 2024 	Best Film Writing 	Ti West and Mia Goth 	 	
Saturn Awards 	February 4, 2024 	Best Actress in a Film 	Mia Goth 	 	
== Follow-up ==
West announced in March 2022 that he was working on the script for a third movie in the film series, to be set chronologically after the events of X. That project will explore another subgenre of horror and will continue depicting how cinema in general, and the development of home video releases in particular, have influenced society. West stated that, while a viewer can watch each movie independently without having seen the previous film, they are made to "complement each other". In describing his creative processes during the development of these films, West stated, "I'm trying to build a world out of all this, like people do these days." The filmmaker further noted, "You can't make a slasher movie without a bunch of sequels."
In September 2022, at the first Midnight Madness showing of Pearl for the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, a third film was officially announced with a short teaser played after the credits. The clip was later released online for those not present at the event. West once again served as writer/director and one of the producers, while Mia Goth reprised her role from the first movie. Titled MaXXXine, the film takes place in 1985 and serves as a sequel to X, centered around Maxine, the only survivor of the "Massacre of X" as she continues to pursue fame in Hollywood. Though principal photography had not yet begun, the teaser trailer was shot, with the film fast-tracked to being green-lit by A24, following the successes of the previous two installments. Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen, and Harrison Kreiss produced, while Goth additionally served as an executive producer. It was released on July 5, 2024.
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:2022 films
Category:2020s films
Category:American horror films
Category:A24 films
Category:Films
Category:English-language films
Category:Prequels
Category:Films written by Ti West
Category:Films directed by Ti West
Category:Pages containing Mature Content