Mia Goth
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David Corenswet
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Tandi Wright
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Matthew Sutherland
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Emma Jenkins-Purro
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Alistair Sewell
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Lauren Stewart
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Mia Goth | David Corenswet | Tandi Wright | |||
Matthew Sutherland | Emma Jenkins-Purro | Alistair Sewell | |||
Lauren Stewart |
Mia Goth | David Corenswet | ||
Tandi Wright | Matthew Sutherland | ||
Emma Jenkins-Purro | Alistair Sewell | ||
Lauren Stewart |
Compellingly collapsing the eponymous character with that of their doppelgänger in the original film, Goth once again portrays a starry-eyed ingenue vying for silver-screen fame, but one whose youthful ambitions are ruled by a disturbed temperament that is quick to merciless violence. Where X paid tribute to the textures and tropes of 1970s horror, the prequel proceeds as a kind of perverse homage to The Wizard of Oz by way of a feminine psychodrama, as Pearl’s fledgling killer instincts emerge in resistance to the various obstacles that threaten to tread on her dreams.
Bathed in a brilliant Technicolor-esque glow courtesy of cinematographer Eliot Rockett, and adorned by Tyler Bates’ sweeping score, which is pitched to the histrionic heights of a classical Hollywood melodrama, Pearl is an even campier affair than its predecessor – complete with surreal musical flights of fancy. Yet Goth anchors its doomful trajectory with an affecting sincerity and volatility, cementing her Pearl among the pantheon of mad women, in the tradition of Carol Kane’s Office Killer Dorine Douglas and Morfydd Clark’s Saint Maud.