Pearl (5 Stars)

I saw "Pearl" at the Stuttgart Nights Festival two months ago, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to see it again. It was the best film of the festival, and the best film of the year so far.

The film takes place in 1918, but it seems relevant today. America is caught in a pandemic, the Spanish Flu. It isn't compulsory to wear masks, but many people wear them in the street. Some people are scared of becoming ill, while others are carefree.

Pearl is a young woman who lives on a farm with her German parents. She's married, but her husband is in France fighting the Germans. Is there a certain irony in that? Nevertheless, the locals don't trust Pearl's family.

Pearl has been unhappy all her life. She never liked the hard work on the farm. She married Howard to take her away from it all, but instead of that he decided to become a farmer. Now Pearl has to look after her father who's paralysed. She has to feed him, dress him and change his clothes when he soils himself. The only good thing that happened to her (and these are her words, not mine) is that when she was pregnant she had a miscarriage. A baby would have trapped her in the farm even more tightly.

Pearl's dream is to become famous. She wants to dance on the stage and in films. She wants the whole world to love her.

That sounds like a moving story. We can almost sympathise with Pearl, until she picks up an axe and starts to chop up anyone who's holding her back.

The film takes a long time to build up to its climax, but that makes it better. The atmosphere shifts slowly from a small town family drama to intense terror before the viewer notices. Mia Goth is a splendid actress. She effortlessly bursts into tears when she holds a long monologue about the troubles in her life. I've seen her in a few films already, but this is the peak of her career so far. She can only get better.