Pearl(2022)

Plot Summary

• In 1918 Texas, during the height of the Spanish Flu pandemic and World War I, Pearl is a young woman living with her German immigrant parents on their homestead, in the absence of her husband, Howard, who is serving overseas. Pearl's father is infirm and paralyzed, and her domineering mother emphasizes the importance that Pearl care for him and help maintain their farm. Pearl, lonely, prone to whimsy and longing for a more exciting life, is captivated by the films she sees at the local cinema and aspires to become a chorus girl, much to her mother's disapproval. Pearl indulges in abusing the liquid morphine provided to her father to manage his pain.At the cinema, Pearl meets a young projectionist who takes a liking to her. While riding her bicycle home, Pearl stops along a cornfield and begins dancing with a scarecrow, fantasizing about the projectionist, and sits on top of it. She later sneaks out of the house at night and visits the projectionist, who shows her A Free Ride, an illicit stag film he acquired in Europe. He encourages Pearl to pursue her dreams while she is still young, and suggests she seek a career in Europe. Pearl comments that she cannot abandon her family, and that she wishes they were dead.Pearl's younger and wealthier sister-in-law, Mitzy, tells her of an audition being held to acquire new dancers for a traveling troupe, which Pearl envisions as a way out of her circumstance. When her mother finds a pamphlet Pearl took from the cinema, she confronts her at dinner. The two get into a fierce argument, during which Pearl's mother chastises her for only focusing on her wants and aspirations, before cruelly telling Pearl that she considers her a "failure", and that she has seen a malevolence in Pearl that terrifies her. A physical altercation erupts, during which Pearl shoves her mother against the kitchen hearth, igniting her dress and resulting in her mother suffering life-threatening burns. Pearl looks in shock at her mother's dress burning and quickly douses the flames, which leaves her mother unconscious. Pearl drags her mother, still alive, into the basement, and leaves her father seated in the kitchen. She flees to the cinema, where she has sex with the projectionist.In the morning, the projectionist drives Pearl back to the farm so she can prepare for the audition. He becomes unnerved when he notices a maggot-infested roasted pig on the porch, which Mitzy's mother left for them the day prior. He is further perturbed by inconsistencies Pearl has told him. When he attempts to leave, Pearl flies into a fit of rage, feeling she is again being abandoned. As he tries to drive away, she stabs him to death with a pitchfork before pushing his car-with his corpse in it-into a pond, where an alligator she has nicknamed Theda eats his remains. Pearl checks on her mother, who lay semi-conscious on the basement stairs and appears to either die or pass out a few seconds later, and chides her before kicking her down the staircase. Pearl dresses herself in one of her mother's lavish gowns, and bathes and dresses her father in a suit before smothering him to death, justifying it as a mercy killing.Pearl arrives at the church where the audition is being held, and is met by a nervous Mitzy, who insists she go before her. Pearl gives a dance performance she feels will win the talent scouts over, but is profoundly distraught when they deny her for being "not blonde" or what they're looking for. Mitzy accompanies Pearl home and attempts to calm her. In the kitchen, Pearl makes a lengthy confession to Mitzy about her resentment toward Howard, who came to work at her family home as a farmhand; Pearl saw her marriage to Howard, the son of an upper-class family, as a way to escape her parents, but was crestfallen when he insisted the two remain on her family's farm. She further confesses her feelings of alienation and insecurity, and admits to having begun murdering farm animals before taking the lives of her parents and the projectionist, which she regrets especially in the case of her father. She finishes by saying that she really loves Howard, that being loved is all she really wants and that she'll try to make the farm a home if that's what he wants. A stunned Mitzy attempts to leave, nervously assuring Pearl she will not divulge their conversation. Pearl calmly pushes Mitzy to confess that she was chosen for the troupe by the talent scouts, then quietly watches her leave. A few seconds later, she slowly follows Mitzy onto the porch and grabs an axe. Mitzy attempts to flee. Pearl chases her down the driveway and brutally kills her with an axe.Pearl dismembers Mitzy's body and feeds her corpse to Theda, before going into the basement and lying with her dead mother, whom she tells she loves. Having reached the conclusion that her mother is correct, and that Pearl should "make the best of what she has", Pearl decides to remediate her wrongdoings by creating a comfortable home for Howard when he returns from combat. The next morning, Howard arrives unexpectedly. In the kitchen, he is horrified to find the dead bodies of Pearl's parents seated at the dining table around the rotting pig. Pearl greets him with a protracted, pained expression of joy.

Storyline

• Trapped on her family's isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she's seen in the movies, Pearl finds her ambitions, temptations, and repressions all colliding in this origin story of X's iconic villain. Texas, 1918. Decades before the events of X (2022) , Pearl, an ambitious farm girl obsessed with dancing and the film industry, can't wait to leave the nest and make a name for herself. Instead, Pearl is trapped in an isolated farmhouse, living under the same roof with her wheelchair-using father and her punishing, disapproving German mother, Ruth. But all Pearl wants to do is to be like the pretty girls in the pictures and not end up like her mum. However, as the romantic dream of a glamorous movielike life fades, chronic frustration and violent tendencies pour forth. After all, no one said it would be easy. But when you are simmering with rage, how do you deal with not getting what you want? — Nick Riganas 1918. World War 1 is drawing to a close and the Spanish Flu is ravaging America. On a small isolated farm a teenage girl, Pearl, lives with her strict, domineering mother and almost-dead father. She dreams of being a star of stage and screen but her circumstances, and in particular her mother, seem destined to hold her back. However, her ambition knows no limits, to the point of being an obsession. — grantss