PEARL (2002)

I haven’t said much about Pearl, mainly because I’ve spent the last 24 hours since I saw it processing the unexpected emotional residue it left me with. The difference between this movie and its predecessor, X, is more than just a matter of its faux-Technicolor aesthetic versus X’s ‘70s-inspired low-budget local grunge, or its emphasis on character evolution (or devolution) over transgressive sex and violence (though make no mistake, Pearl does not skimp on sex or transgressive, surprisingly painful gore). The difference, it seems to me, is Pearl's depth of feeling, of emotional resonance.

The movie’s not-so-secret weapon is Mia Goth as Pearl, who sells the character’s constant teetering between levels of reality and desire with horrifying immediacy and surprising shades of empathy, especially given the, um, antisocial behavior we see her indulge on first pitch(fork). In mapping the psychological terrain of a character who could be, given that Technicolor signaling director Ti West indulges with abandon, a rotting vision of what might have happened to Dorothy Gale had she never been swept off the farm to catch a glimpse of Oz, Goth accesses the guileless spirit of a young Shelley Duvall, and the final shot of the movie, which she occupies to devastating effect, made me feel like I was having a Bickle-sized meltdown to match the one on screen. 

 (This post was written in 2022 just after seeing Ti West's Pearl for the first time.)