I hosted a "Pearl" watch party…

And here’s how it went.

I invited my family to the living room to watch a movie of my choice. I chose Pearl, a psychological horror film directed by Ti West. Initially, I had originally only extended the invitation to my sister since my mum hates horror, and though my dad could be considered a movie fan, he doesn’t tend to watch very many even if he means to. Alas, the whole gang turned up, most likely because of the snacks and refreshments. And if you think that watching a movie with your family is not a “party” I disagree- there was cake, thus it was a party.

Our television is old, and the sound, often slow, was cause for many pauses to let the audio catch up with the picture. The TV screen has a slightly blue tinge to it that only I seem to notice, but this didn’t stop all of us from admiring the vivid color palette this movie sports, reminiscent of the days of technicolor. These initial shots of a serene farm with intensely saturated coloring lent a warning to us about the intensity of what’s to come within the bounds of a seemingly picturesque life.

This movie is set in 1918, on the tail end of the war, where Pearl's husband Howard has been and is yet to return from, and amid the Spanish Flu Pandemic. We quickly learn of Pearl's responsibilities on the farm; with her dad's health deteriorating, and her mother too distressed by his worsening condition to tend to him, Pearl is his caregiver. We also see her spending a lot of her time in the barn; living on a farm she has some responsibility for the animals. Given she is the youngest of the household, and therefore most likely to recover if she were to catch “the germ,” any trips to be made to town are taken by her. These responsibilities are not out of the scope of normal for a young person, but as we see the family dynamic inside the house, we can understand why Pearl is desperate for a way out.

I don’t think we are ever given Pearl's age, but presumably, she is in her late teens or early twenties, potentially slightly younger given the era and location the film is set in. Despite this, she comes across as very childlike at times; bathing in front of her dad, wearing large bows in her hair, claiming she bought candy when coming home to her mother short of change, and a timid, and at times playful nature. When she leaves her house, she seems to come alive as an adult, she takes control over how she spends her time: she goes to watch a film, spends time with the projectionist, at one point watching pornographic movies that he brought back from Europe, and there's the infamous scarecrow scene… I think when you live at home as an adult the family dynamic never really changes; Pearl leaves her adult self on the doorstep of her house and can only be her when she leaves, or when she visits herself in her dreams where life is wholly different. 

I think something we can all empathize with when watching this movie is the effect isolation has on us, with this movie being released in 2020, as an audience, we never had to imagine what living through a pandemic would feel like. Thankfully for all of us, we can relate to her isolation but not the actions from Pearl that follow this initial symptom. I don’t believe that the 1918 pandemic was the beginning of Pearl's loneliness however; the way she speaks with the animals in the barn like they are her long-term close friends, her home being so remote, and no mention of friends other than her husband, we get the sense Pearls isolation, and her escape to day-dreaming about her future, has been a long time in the making. I’ve been reading a book called ‘The Anxious Generation’, and the author speaks about the crucial development stages children growing up in the digital world are missing out on, he talks about the loss of attunement that comes from socializing primarily online, quoting the National Institute of Play he lays out the following consequences:

Children often face emotional difficulties and exhibit erratic behavior…have difficulty forming healthy attachments… less able to cope with unexpected challenges… less able to make sound decisions when risk is involved”

These symptoms may be connected to life online, but still, they are eerily descriptive of a character like Pearl, who has dealt with extreme isolation and has not been able to form her self-perception from varied social interactions, instead relying on her parents and husband as a means of seeing herself. Her world is so small and the judgments from her mother particularly, echo in her mind- the negative comments are inescapable. When we see Pearl meet the projectionist, we see a curious side to her, she seems wary of his kindness but begins to see herself through his eyes. She talks to him confidently about her hopes and dreams of being a movie star.

Pearl was invited to a dance audition by her sister-in-law Mitsy, and she is desperate to go. When she visits the cinema on a trip to collect her father's medicine, she is enthralled by the girls dancing on the screen. Finally, she has a chance to be one of them and make her dreams a reality. Throughout the film, we see her fantasizing about what life would be like if she were a star. The tension builds slowly under the surface of these dreams, but when Pearl falls from the clouds and hits reality hard, we suddenly witness outbursts of violence that are startling and explosive, leaving us feeling uneasy about the way we were rooting for her to be able to leave the farm.

This film has us constantly grappling with the age-old question of nature vs nurture in a very interesting way. It's not uncommon that a film hints at a tragic backstory for the villain, but more often than not, our focus is always taken back to the heroes. On one hand, we see Pearl killing animals without remorse, a classic characteristic of a psychopath; on the other, we see someone deeply capable of emotion and very perceptive to the feelings of those around her. In both instances, we see someone who loses control completely and drastically. Pearl is constantly questioning her morality, something we maybe wouldn’t expect from someone with such violence inside of them. Her mother's poor opinion of her- once her telling Pearl that “she knows what she’s capable of”- contrasted with the kindness that is shown to her by Mitsy, her family, and the projectionist, seems to throw off Pearl's perception of herself.

Pearl, at moments, is surprisingly reflective; near the end of the film, everything we have witnessed is confirmed to us in an almost seven-minute-long monologue from Pearl. This is the climax of the film and where we would maybe expect something more thrilling and fast-paced from a horror film, we are given something completely different. It’s possibly the longest consecutive amount of time in the whole film that we see Pearl thinking and living in the present, and not in her dreamland. My sister announced to me at the end of the movie that “the long talk was so boring”- to my surprise and disappointment, since I think this is the best part of the movie, I should be thankful to her for saying that though because it had me thinking more about why I found it so compelling. It doesn’t need to be said that this moment wouldn’t be as captivating as it is without the chilling yet melancholic performance from Mia Goth. She truly became her character, and I couldn’t see past Pearl no matter how closely I looked into her eyes, which with the camera closed in on Pearl's face for most of the scene, is something we are given many chances at. We listen to Pearl confess to every terrible thing she has done, with some remorse, but a generous dose of self-pity as well. If it wasn’t already clear to us that Pearl had an unrealistic vision of what she needed to do to reach her dreams, it is confirmed here. She felt trapped and saw no way out, leading her to kill her family and anyone who got in her way. When her one shot at her new life was met with rejection she gave up. She admits that she just wanted to be loved, and she saw an opportunity for love- in abundance- in stardom. It makes sense that Pearl was drawn to this life, where nobody had to truly know the real her to love her. Being able to light up the screen was enough for her to be considered and adored by many. I think the chance to perform and play someone else would also have been tempting to her. The way this moment helps us understand Pearl's mind and even has us feeling sorry for her despite the horrors we have just watched her carry out, wraps up the emotions we feel throughout every conflicting scene in the movie. Ti West and Mia Goth’s ability to create a multidimensional character that fluctuates from good to evil is fascinating. They were able to humanise someone who at times has no respect for humanity. The horror elements of this film are used as a tool to intensify and highlight the contradictions and multitudes that humans can possess. It’s refreshing to see a character so honest to a fault, even if at times she takes things much too far. At one point in the monologue, she asks Mitsy “Do people like you ever feel this way?” though this was in conversation with another character, throughout the scene the audience takes Mitsy’s seat, listening directly to what Pearl has to say. My mother dislikes horror in general, questioning anyone who can feel passionate about themes so brutal; I think this question posed to us as the audience forces us to get closer to Pearl, to see her as someone who could be human like us, to think of her in relation to ourselves. I think the only way to enjoy this film is to go against our better judgment and fully see into Pearl and her world, and if you can handle it, be able to see two things to be true at once, she can be a victim of her surroundings, and the first victim of herself, as well as a villain. After her declaration of remorse comes to a close, just when we thought the end of the terror was in sight, she strikes again in the most haunting scene of all. This reminds us of the question we are left to decide the answer to ourselves: is a villain born or made?

By the end of the film, most of the cake I made had been eaten, and the animal biscuits too. The Shirley temples had gone flat, and the room was filled with silence. My Dad complimented the coloring of the film, my sister said she preferred Maxxxine (which we had seen a few weeks ago) and my mum questioned why that story even needed to be told- a question I find so interesting- inquiring further, she couldn’t give me a reason why. I don’t think there needs to be a universal reason for any art to be made, the compulsion to tell any story is reason enough. I thought this unfortunate failure to entertain my watch party guests had started to make me dislike the film, but unlike Pearl, I wasn’t going to give up after one rejection, so I decided to write about what I loved about it.

I plan to host another watch party soon, if anyone has any movie suggestions, please let me know!

-terrible footage of the set up :)