Pearl is perhaps one of A24’s more popular horror films.
Filmed subsequently with Ti West’s X in 2022 and then released shortly after, Pearl helped fuel the excitement for the final movie in the trilogy—MaXXXine. Mia Goth stars in both X and Pearl as a lead role, with the latter serving as a prequel and an origin story to X.
There are elements in Pearl that establish the titular character’s motivation for her heinous bloodbath, but it isn’t all just about blood and gore when it comes to the film’s main plot.
Pearl is set in the year 1918, when World War 1 is taking place and many men have been drafted into the military, along with the influenza pandemic causing troubles at home. Pearl’s reasoning behind all of her brutal murders can be chalked up to insanity, but the film gives a more in depth look into why and how she descended into madness.
Pearl’s husband Howard is away overseas fighting for America while she’s stuck back at home, tending to her ill father and obeying orders from her strict German mother. She gets through the mind-numbing repetition of working on the family farm by dreaming of getting away from it all and becoming a movie star. The war separated Pearl from her husband Howard for a very long time and during their time away from each other, the weight of taking care of her family’s home and her ill father took its toll on Pearl mentally, leading to the unfortunate chain of events.
Her Husband is Away Overseas
The events that happen in Pearl may have never happened if her husband was able to stay with her on the family farm. During a scene near the climax of the film, Pearl unleashes an unhinged monologue that gives a perfect window into her reasoning and state of mind during the brutal killing spree. She is finally able to vent to someone after all the murders and unfortunately that someone is her step-sister, Mitsy (played by Emma Jenkins-Purro) who is hearing her out by pretending to be her brother, Howard, so Pearl can feel comfortable enough to divulge what’s in her head.
Pearl reveals that she secretly resents Howard for leaving her on the family’s farm to fight in the war, how she isn’t able to cope with being alone from Howard and how the weight of taking care of things at the family farm has come crashing down on her. Some can speculate that WWI is the reason why Pearl finally snapped into insanity, by having to face the harsh reality of taking care of a sick parent and having your own mother be cold towards you while the world is at war and having no one to talk to about it. Her husband’s absence in her life leads her to have conversations with a photograph of him that she keeps at her bedside table and even a short affair with a movie projectionist.
One thing is clear from Pearl’s monologue; she doesn’t like being alone and away from her husband.
She Had the Freedom to Become Unhinged
The world may have been at war, but things weren’t so peaceful on the home front in Pearl, either. With her husband away in the army, Pearl had all the free time to imagine and think of horrible things. The film shows early on with the death of the goose that Pearl may have had some slight murderous tendencies already within her.
Being away from her husband, Howard, allowed Pearl more time to dive deeper into her madness. One can say that Howard was her stability in life. He was a hardworking farmhand who decided to marry Pearl after working on her family’s farm, and they’ve been side by side ever since. After Howard goes away to fight in the war, Pearl is left with her mother and sick father to make up for the lack of help on the farm due to the war drafting most of the farmhands away, which is deeply distressing for Pearl.
She’s mostly alone during the entirety of the film, which allows her to explore the hidden recesses of her ever-growing dark mind. Pearl even has a relationship with an alligator, dubbed Theda, that lives near the family farm in a pond, that she feeds the goose she killed earlier in the film to. While the war is keeping her husband Howard busy with defending the country, Pearl is busy realizing how dark and disturbing she can become. From crushing baby alligator eggs with her bare hands, to killing the same man she had an affair with while feeling the loneliness from her husband’s absence, Pearl demonstrates the horrifying effects of waiting at home for your loved one while they’re away at war.
World War 1 plays a major role in Pearl, by showcasing the madness that can befall someone while they sit at home during a pandemic, waiting for their dearly departed’s return from the war. If Howard wasn’t enlisted in the war, would Pearl have become the murderous woman that she evolved into? Would Pearl be happy and not eventually snap into insanity that continues over the years shown by the older version of her in the movie X? There is no way of knowing for sure, but it’s almost safe to say that if Pearl had her husband by her side during the events that took place within the film, things could’ve turned out a lot differently.
