Let's Talk About "Pearl" (2022)

David Corenswet in "Pearl." He can spool my film thread anytime.

X was better. The porn scenes were hot.

Let's talk about that brilliant monologue of hers.

R2 I'm friends with an actual porn actor from the 1970s, the time period that "X" takes place in.

I asked him about the movie and if it was an accurate depiction of how porn was made in the 1970s. He laughed out loud and said the movie got everything wrong.

R3 That really was amazing. And afterward, the reaction from the sister-in-law: "Well, I guess I better be going now."

[quote]He laughed out loud and said the movie got everything wrong.

It's a horror movie, not a documentary.

R6 But if you're going to tell a story about making porn in the 1970s, it should be grounded in some semblance of accuracy.

[quote]But if you're going to tell a story about making porn in the 1970s, it should be grounded in some semblance of accuracy.

It wasn't *about* making porn in the '70s, r6, that was just the setting. Again, it wasn't a documentary.

R8 The plot of the movie involves a group of folks who go to Texas to make porn. The majority of the film is scenes about making porn.

Have it your way, r9.

The one thing that seemed incongruous in the movie was Pearl's obsession to go to Hollywood and be a movie star. The movie takes place in 1918. Was Hollywood really that big of a deal in 1918? I always thought the myth of Hollywood and becoming a star was ushered in long after WWI.

I've seen all three. Nothing unnerved me more than the first alligator scene. I thought she was crazy for jumping into a random pond in the south. Pearl was very creative with a couple laughs thrown in and MaXXXine was fine.

"Pearl" is an interesting character study shot to look like an old Hollywood film. I liked it, especially the monologue that Mia Goth absolutely kills. But it doesn't have the same momentum and energy as "X."

"MaXXXine" was ... not good. It had its moments, and I understood what it was going for, but a lot of it felt underdeveloped.

[quote]"MaXXXine" was ... not good. It had its moments, and I understood what it was going for, but a lot of it felt underdeveloped.

Totally agree, r13.

R11 Hollywood began producing films in 1911. By 1918 there would've been over 20 companies in California producing films. So it's not much of a stretch that Pearl would latch onto what was seen as a gimmicky fad at the time as a desperate means to escape the farm for a much better life.

Zzzzzzz.

"Pearl" was the best of the three, though I thought "X" was very good and "MaXXXine" was worth watching for its grimy grindhouse feel and great use of music.

If David Lynch had ever riffed on "The Wizard of Oz" I imagine it would have looked something like "Pearl."

It's my head canon that Maxine is Pearl's grand daughter. In the monologue Pearl says she had a baby that died but her mom knew Pearl was crazy so she could have had it taken away and adopted out.

R17 I liked that they made Pearl look like Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz whenever she was shown riding her bicycle.

R18 Howard must've gotten Pearl pregnant around 15-18. Maxine's father is kind of old looking in X. But then again Maxine looks a lot younger than her actual age since she's around 35 by the third film and seen dancing as a little girl in a home movie filmed in the mid-late 1950's. If that were true Pearl most likely would've been her maternal grandmother.

Maxine was born in 1952. Pearl's child would have been around 35 so it's possible.

"X" and "Pearl" are easily in my top 10 favorite horror movies of the last decade. I really wanted to love "MaXXXine" and I liked elements of it, but it felt like it was seriously lacking in terms of themes and subtext, which both the other films had (and which is partly what made them interesting). "MaXXXine" ultimately felt kind of hollow to me.

That said, I enjoy the trilogy overall because you get roughly a century's worth of visual aesthetics packed into three films. Each movie is a distinct time capsule of its own. I do think "Pearl" is the saddest and darkest film of the three, despite its Douglas Sirk color overload and sunny farm setting. It's a sad story and there are elements of the character (psychosis/murderous impulses aside) that I think any outsider can identify with.

Mia Goth in Pearl, crazy smile-crying through the end credits.

^^ That was Mia's horror movie tribute to Timothée's crying over the end credits in Call Me By Your Name.