MAXXXINE: 3 ½ STARS. “a ‘final girl’ horror icon who gets her due.”
LOGLINE: A look into the sleazy world of 1985 Los Angeles after dark, the new DePalma-esque film “Maxxxine” stars Mia Goth as the title character, a porn star who gets a big mainstream break just as her sinister past comes back to haunt her. She may have left her past behind, but her past is not done with her.
CAST: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon. Directed by Ti West.
REVIEW: Over three movies, “X,” the prequel “Pearl” and now “Maxxxine,” writer/director Ti West has constructed a weird and wild look at the movie business and the ruthless ambition it takes to become famous in that industry. From the beginning years of film, straight through to the excess of the mid-eighties, West’s films center on Maxine Minx and Pearl, both played by Mia Goth, who share dreams of stardom and a willingness to spill blood—other people’s blood—to become famous.
Each film is distinct in style and feel—there’s “Pearl’s” Technicolor splendor, the 70s slasher feel of “X” and “Maxxxine’s” giallo grit—and yet they hang together as a whole because of Goth. The characters Maxine and Pearl provide the throughline that binds the films together, despite whatever flight of fancy West places them in.
Goth does fearless work, her trademark toothy grin an uncomfortable beacon of menace amid the film’s scenes of brutal, grindhouse violence. It’s a wonderfully strange performance, a unique take on an anti-hero who is simultaneously alluring and repulsive in her burning desires. It is Goth’s committed performance in “Maxxxine” that ushers the franchise along to the kind of garish finale fans expect from West.
A star-studded list of supporting actors—Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito—add color to the story, but it’s Kevin Bacon, as a smarmy Louisiana private investigator who steals every scene he appears in.
“Maxxxine” is likely the end of Goth and West’s edgy movie trilogy, and it goes out with a bang. In crafting a character who is both victim and a villain, a woman shaped by her upbringing and unbridled ambition, West and Goth have created a “final girl” horror icon who gets her due, and much more, in the trilogy’s final film.
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