Pearl

I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked X so I have been anticipating the release of the prequel Pearl ever since I learned about it!  I finally had the chance to see it last night and I think it is a brilliant character study that sets up the events in X very well.  It is 1918 and Pearl (Mia Goth) longs for a more exciting life but her husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) has abandoned her to fight overseas and she is now trapped on her family's farm caring for her infirm father (Mathew Sunderland) and her judgmental mother (Tandi Wright).  She is further alienated from everyone around her when her plans to become the biggest star in the world do not come to fruition.  She eventually decides to take matters into her own hands, thereby becoming the villain we meet in X.  This has a very different style than X, which is an homage to the slasher films of the 1970s such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and takes its visual cues from the Technicolor films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, especially The Wizard of Oz.  It also has a very different tone and feels more like a melodrama than a horror film (even though it has plenty of gore) with a sweeping score to match.  However, it is a perfect complement to the earlier movie because it adds another layer to Pearl's motivation.  She is obviously mourning her lost youth but now we see that she is also envious of all the opportunities that she did not have and I actually found her to be a bit sympathetic.  Goth gives an amazing performance with a monologue in the third act that blew me away where she tearfully confesses to everything she has done and laments the fact that she really had no choice.  It is a very powerful moment.  I was also mesmerized by the long close-up on her face during the end credits!  As with X, I enjoyed this so much more than I was expecting and I recommend it to fans of its predecessor.

Note:  A sequel to X called MaXXXine is coming soon and I'm beyond excited for it!