Summary
- Ti West’s slasher trilogy concludes with
MaXXXine
, paying homage to Giallo films and ’80s suspense thrillers. - Mia Goth delivers a stellar performance, and the ensemble features notable actors like Kevin Bacon and Giancarlo Esposito.
- Pearl’s appearances in
MaXXXine
are symbolic, representing Maxine’s guilt and the need to overcome her past for a successful career in Hollywood.
Spoiler alert: Spoilers follow for MaXXXineHollywood is the biggest killer of them all. After a long wait, Ti West’s fantastic slasher trilogy has come to a close with MaXXXine, which was recently released in theaters. Like with X and Pearl, West pays loving homage to the genres he grew up with, this time the Giallo film and the ’80s suspense thriller, especially the ones by Brian De Palma. Admittedly, his experiments don’t pay off quite as well this time around, as the plot takes a while to pick up steam, and for once, West seems to fall victim to the clichés he usually subverts.
That said, MaXXXine has plenty to offer that makes it worthy of a recommendation, namely a typically excellent starring turn from Mia Goth and maybe his best ensemble to date, with standouts like Giancarlo Esposito and Kevin Bacon. Yet the most fascinating element the film has going for it is how it furthers the title character’s journey and resolves her arc in a way that’s satisfying when examining the rest of the trilogy.
Is Pearl Back From the Dead in MaXXXine?
MaXXXine
4/5
- Release Date
- July 5, 2024
- Runtime
- 1h 43m
When the first trailer for MaXXXine dropped, one scene, in particular, caught the attention of eagle-eyed viewers and set the stage for the franchise’s most prevalent fan theorizing to date. That scene took place at the house in the Universal Studios backlot that doubled as the set for the Bates Motel and manor in Psycho. A quick shot displayed a brief glimpse of Pearl, the title character from the trilogy’s middle chapter and the antagonist of X, standing in the window of the Bates house.
Having watched the film in full, we can officially confirm — no, Pearl has not returned from the dead; she’s only a hallucination Maxine has while taking a break from filming in the backlot. Granted, her particularly gruesome demise in X didn’t leave much room for ambiguity, but as most speculated, Pearl’s only appearances in the film come from either daydreams or flashbacks to the trilogy’s previous installments.
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That being said, her death at the hands of Maxine informs most of the plot and themes present in MaXXXine. The most obvious of these is guilt, as the title character spends most of the first half struggling to legitimize herself as an actress, partially from the stigma of working in the porn industry but mostly from the demons from her past. The most obvious threat from the latter category comes from John Labat (Kevin Bacon, returning to the genre that helped kickstart his career), a private investigator on her trail, suspicious of her involvement with the events in X.
The second demon from Maxine’s past, and the main antagonist of the film, is her televangelist father. Steadfast in his belief that Hollywood is a cesspool of sin and vice, her father brutally murders her friends and tries to coerce her into disavowing her lifestyle on camera. As Maxine says, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve.” The film’s climax forces her to confront the demons from her past directly to follow her dream of becoming a star. Thus, Pearl’s brief appearances are more symbolic than anything — she represents the final guilt Maxine must overcome to move forward with her career.
How Does MaXXXine Juxtapose Maxine and Pearl?
The quick return of Pearl also illustrates another one of the key themes from the rest of Ti West’s trilogy, which MaXXXine ultimately resolves. If there’s been one constant conceit throughout these three movies, it’s exploring the inherently cutthroat nature of show business and how chasing after a seemingly idyllic life can crush the dreamers forced to face the dark reality underneath. Nowhere has the love/hate relationship with Hollywood been more pronounced than in the dynamic between Maxine and Pearl and how their circumstances and ambitions compare and contrast.
As established in X, Maxine Minx saw her star rise in the late 1970s, right as the adult film industry was on the rise. Born to a fundamentalist televangelist, Maxine ran away from home in favor of a more glamorous lifestyle filled with sex and drugs, granting her personal freedom and liberation from her past. However, as illustrated in Pearl, the sad fact is that the title character was never afforded these opportunities. She was every bit as starstruck with the movie industry as Maxine, but her conservative parents forced her to live a life of repression, ultimately driving her to madness and murder.
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This directly sets up the other significant way that Pearl and Maxine compare and contrast, namely the murderous means they take to achieve their goals. As shown through the haunting final shot of Pearl, the title character’s turn to villainy is rooted in resentment, knowing that her Hollywood dream will forever remain out of grasp. When she reaches old age and finally meets her younger doppelgänger in X, she’s driven mad by envy and infuriated that Maxine can follow her dreams in a way she never could.
Maxine, on the other hand, as unscrupulous as she is, uses violence less as a means to lash out at the world around her and more as a way to fight for the dream she knows is within her grasp. MaXXXine fittingly depicts her at a crossroads; as her past comes back to haunt her, she chooses to extinguish her demons once and for all and accept the life she deserves. Because if she doesn’t, she knows in her heart that she’ll end up like Pearl, forever resentful and angry at the lucky few who made it.
Pearl’s Return Is Symbolic and Reflects What Maxine Wants to Be
As such, the brief hallucinatory moments of Pearl in MaXXXine function best as a glimpse into the title character’s mind and the career crossroads she faces. Upon daydreaming about her symbolic predecessor, Maxine realizes that as the walls of her past close in around her, if she truly wants to make it in such a famously cutthroat industry, she has to fight for it and crush everyone in her past and present who stands in her way.
Pearl was a monster created from the tragedy of someone accepting a life they didn’t think they deserved, and what makes MaXXXine work so well as a trilogy closer is how it breaks the cycle and allows Goth’s character to achieve her dreams. MaXXXine is now playing in theaters.
