is similarly distinctive in its homage to period filmmaking and genre paradigms. Co-written by West and Mia Goth ,-inspired backwoods of 1979 rural Texas for the same setting, but a different time: here, the cabin whereIt is 1918, the era of the Spanish Flu, and Pearl, the elderly, murderous figure of, is pictured as a self-positioned bright-eyed ingenue, relegated however to the perceived indignities of caring for her family and the land they live on.
Alongside West’s continued study of historically specific ways of filmmaking, this emphasis on the young Pearl’s origins is offered as the main substance of the director’s latest film. This is, above all, a character study, embedded within a smattering of rich set pieces, dance sequences, and all the other trappings of Technicolor wonderment.
She tells the animals on her farm that she is going to be a star; she is subsumed by the idea – much like’s Maxine – of having “the X factor.” Where Maxine’s ambition translated to a wonderfully euphoric understanding of what star presence might look like once the cameras start rolling, here Pearl feels inert, trapped in a false reality of her own making.
It is this sense of delusion as well as an utter frustration of sexual desire that seem most indicative of her murderous capacities. And while it is a welcome twist to the tonal genealogies of Pearl and Maxine as doubled figures, it falls flat in living up to its potential as a window into Pearl’s desires and motives. Here, as in, she is not only stunted emotionally but narratively as well.