Pearl

## More information

Pearl is a 2022 American slasher film serving as a prequel to X. The film is directed by Ti West who co-wrote it with Mia Goth.

## Synopsis

Trapped on an isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the watch of her mother. Lusting for the glamorous life she's seen in movies, Pearl's temptations and repressions collide.

### Plot

In 1918, during the influenza pandemic, Pearl is a young woman living with her German immigrant parents on their Texas homestead while her husband, Howard, serves in World War I. Pearl's father is infirm and paralyzed, and her domineering mother, Ruth, insists that she help care for both him and the farm. Pearl, longing for a more exciting life, is captivated by the films she sees at the local cinema and aspires to become a chorus girl, much to Ruth's disapproval. However, Pearl also shows signs of being a disturbed individual; for example, she kills farm animals and physically abuses her father.

At the movie theater, Pearl meets a young projectionist who takes a liking to her. While riding her bicycle home, Pearl stops along a cornfield and begins dancing with a scarecrow, fantasizing about the projectionist, and masturbates with it. When her mother realizes that eight cents are missing from an errand Pearl did, Pearl is berated about being careless and has her supper withheld.

Pearl's affluent sister-in-law, Mitsy, tells her of an audition being held to find new dancers for a traveling troupe, which Pearl envisions as a way out of her circumstance. She later sneaks out of the house at night and visits the projectionist, who shows her *A Free Ride*, an illicit he acquired in France. He encourages Pearl to pursue her dreams. Pearl comments that she cannot abandon her family, and that she wishes "they would just die."

When Ruth finds a program Pearl took from the movie theater, the two get into a fierce argument over dinner. A physical altercation erupts, during which Pearl shoves her mother against the kitchen hearth, igniting her dress and resulting in Ruth suffering life-threatening burns. Pearl drags Ruth into the basement and leaves her father seated in the kitchen. She flees to the movie theater, where she has sex with the projectionist.

In the morning, the projectionist drives Pearl back to the farm so she can prepare for the audition. He is perturbed by a now maggot-infested roasted pig Mitsy's mother left for Ruth the day before, and by inconsistencies Pearl has told him, as well as by her theatrical behavior. When he attempts to leave, Pearl flies into a fit of rage at his abandonment of her, and stabs him to death with a pitchfork before pushing his car—with his corpse in it—into a pond, where an alligator she has nicknamed Theda eats his remains. Pearl dresses herself in one of Ruth's lavish gowns, and dresses up her father before smothering him to death.

Pearl arrives at the church where the audition is being held. She gives a dance performance she feels will win over the talent scouts, but is devastated when she is rejected for not being young, blonde, or "all-American". Mitsy accompanies her home in an attempt to console her. In the kitchen, Pearl makes a lengthy confession to Mitsy about her resentment toward Howard, who came from a privileged background but insisted that the couple remain on her family's farm, and admits she was relieved when she miscarried his child. She further confesses her feelings of alienation and insecurity, her joy in acts of harm, and to taking the lives of her parents and the projectionist. Pearl then manipulates a stunned Mitsy into confessing that she won the audition over Pearl. Jealous that Mitsy won the audition, Pearl chases her down the driveway and kills her with an axe.

Pearl dismembers Mitsy's body and feeds her corpse to Theda, before going into the basement and lying with a deceased Ruth. Concluding that her mother was correct and that Pearl should "make the best of what she has", she decides to remediate her wrongdoings by creating a comfortable home for Howard when he returns from the war. The next morning, Howard arrives unexpectedly. In the kitchen, he is horrified to find the bodies of Pearl's parents seated at the dining table around the rotting pig. Pearl greets him with a protracted, pained smile.

## Cast

* Mia Goth as Pearl
* David Corenswet as The Projectionist
* Tandi Wright as Ruth
* Matthew Sunderland as Pearl's Father
* Emma Jenkins-Purro as Mitsy
* Alistair Sewell as Howard