Hollywood, 1985.
Years into a successful career as an adult film star, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) is eager to transition into mainstream film work.
Her entry point is the lead role in a new horror movie, Puritan II.
Just when Maxine’s dreams of stardom seem within reach, she has to contend with a new obstacle, an unknown enemy with an intimate knowledge of her past…
I am not sure what to make of this one.
Genre pastiche can feel like the movie equivalent of empty calories.
Underneath the aesthetic choices and references to other films, what is the film trying to say?
I cannot say I can remember much about X, the first film in this series. I enjoyed it but I had a much stronger reaction to Pearl, the prequel which came out the same year.
That film cast a long shadow over this one.
Unlike Pearl, who ended her last film confined to her homestead with dreams crushed, Maxine has made it into show business.
When we open the picture, our antiheroine is auditioning for a mainstream production. We then follow her as she goes back home and then ventures out to keep working.
The evocation of 80s LA is great. Neon, wet concrete and so scuzzy you can almost smell it.
Intercut with Maxine’s journey through this environment, we get montages of the zeitgeist: the satanic panic around music and movies, and reports on the latest victims of real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez.
It is a world filled with dangers, and Maxine is the calm eye of the storm: An x-rated Sammy Glick with her eyes on the prize.
Maxine’s drive to be successful at all costs feels like a straight line. Every time she faces an obstacle, she destroys it.
The ending features an imaginary happy ending, followed by another happy ending. I could not track what the film wants the viewer to leave the movie with.
‘Show business is tough?’
‘People in show business are evil?’
It is watchable, but MaxXxine does not seem to have a firm or new thesis.
The cast are good: Kevin Bacon is reliably disgusting as an amoral private investigator, and singers Halsey and Moses Sumney are effective as Maxine’s friends.
Elizabeth Debicki is great as the battle hardened director. Becaus the movie is such a love letter to 80s genre movies I was trying to figure out who she was supposed to represent.
I gave up. She is meant to be who Maxine wants to be , and an unknowing mentor for the murderous actress.
She is also tied to the film’s dramatic inertia - Maxine is already shown to be completely willing to murder or maim anyone, so the director’s monologues about having to be tough to make it in Hollywood feel a little beside the point.
If Maxine had killed innocent people, or did something underhanded to get ahead, maybe these moments would hit. As is, they are just darkly comic asides.
I left the movie vaguely unsatisfied. It is not much of a horror movie, or a satire of Hollywood, and there is no real character growth to speak of.
I have not seen all of Ti West’s films, but of those I have seen, outside of Pearl, I always find them somewhat lacking.
He has interesting ideas, and has a handle on how to reproduce the stylistic quirks and limitations of older films. But MaxXxine reinforces that he does not seem to have an idea of what he wants to use the elements for.
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