Pearl

A prequel to 2022’s X, Pearl follows Mia Goth’s title character as she attempts to find a way out of her dreary, humdrum life. Filmmaker Ti West, armed with his and Goth’s screenplay, kicks Pearl off with a decidedly deliberate opening stretch that benefits substantially from Goth’s often spellbinding performance, as the movie is, in its early stages, saddled with a watchable yet far-from-enthralling feel that pushes its slow-moving aesthetic almost to its breaking point – with the picture, at the outset, generally coming off as a character study of a deeply unhappy woman. And although it does boast an assortment of striking sequences, including a terrific scene wherein Pearl angrily confronts her controlling mother (Tandi Wright’s Ruth), Pearl doesn’t wholeheartedly take off until it progresses into its comparatively gripping second half – as West has punctuated this portion of the proceedings with a number of undeniably captivating sequences. (This is especially true of a showstopper of an interlude in which Pearl makes a confession to a friend.) By the time the captivating final shot rolls around, Pearl has cemented its place as a hit-and-miss endeavor that’d hardly be worth mentioning were it not for Goth’s eye-opening, star-making turn.

*** out of ****