A crew of pornographers wanting to make it big in the end of the seventies are boarding on an elderly couple's farm to film their shoot. When the old couple find out what their boarders are doing, things turn south fast as the elders' resentment spurs them to kill.
X is fascinating because it's a Texas Chainsaw-influenced slasher and a movie about porn, but it's also an extremely nuanced story. The old people killing have poignant reasons to be angry; the young people are portrayed as both accepting and perhaps foolishly naive. The film is very sexual, but sex is nuanced—commitment, consent, entertainment, and openness are discussed. The protagonists have their own complex conflicts, and the film has one compelling mirror in the elderly woman, Pearl, and porn actress Maxine, played by Mia Goth. These two characters are set against each other as hypothetical past and future of each other...and in a way, they are. X is to be the central film of a trilogy, and the film which unites opposing characters Maxine and Pearl, with the other two films preceding and following X to follow the journey of each woman prior to and following X. It's a brilliant concept for a trilogy, and yet X stands alone well by directly juxtaposing the characters rather than juxtaposition coming from each character's separate film. You can watch X alone and enjoy the parallel, but the central film being produced first is a brilliant way to set up the other two films, since they'll be watched with the knowledge of the intersection point in X. If anything, my biggest criticism of X is that Maxine really doesn't feel enough like the protagonist. The pornographers are all rich enough characters that it feels like the film exploring them detracts from Maxine. Sure, she'll be getting her own film soon, but as the center of a trilogy with Pearl and Maxine, Maxine doesn't feel emphasized quite as much as she should be.
The acting in the film is pretty good. Mia Goth does a pretty hard job and does it well, and the whole cast lands it nicely. The elderly characters are both portrayed by actors younger than their age, and I think the makeup is less convincing on the man, Howard. The film is pretty funny and almost metafictional with its dialogue and camera shots, and captures its time period well.
X is a story about aging, opportunity, dreams, naivete, and sexual norms, but it's also an entertaining throwback to the grimy, gritty cinema of the 70s. As one film, it's brilliant. As the center of a trilogy...it's genius.
Film The Sexas Chainsaw Massacre
X is such a cool film.
A crew of pornographers wanting to make it big in the end of the seventies are boarding on an elderly couple's farm to film their shoot. When the old couple find out what their boarders are doing, things turn south fast as the elders' resentment spurs them to kill.
X is fascinating because it's a Texas Chainsaw-influenced slasher and a movie about porn, but it's also an extremely nuanced story. The old people killing have poignant reasons to be angry; the young people are portrayed as both accepting and perhaps foolishly naive. The film is very sexual, but sex is nuanced—commitment, consent, entertainment, and openness are discussed. The protagonists have their own complex conflicts, and the film has one compelling mirror in the elderly woman, Pearl, and porn actress Maxine, played by Mia Goth. These two characters are set against each other as hypothetical past and future of each other...and in a way, they are. X is to be the central film of a trilogy, and the film which unites opposing characters Maxine and Pearl, with the other two films preceding and following X to follow the journey of each woman prior to and following X. It's a brilliant concept for a trilogy, and yet X stands alone well by directly juxtaposing the characters rather than juxtaposition coming from each character's separate film. You can watch X alone and enjoy the parallel, but the central film being produced first is a brilliant way to set up the other two films, since they'll be watched with the knowledge of the intersection point in X. If anything, my biggest criticism of X is that Maxine really doesn't feel enough like the protagonist. The pornographers are all rich enough characters that it feels like the film exploring them detracts from Maxine. Sure, she'll be getting her own film soon, but as the center of a trilogy with Pearl and Maxine, Maxine doesn't feel emphasized quite as much as she should be.
The acting in the film is pretty good. Mia Goth does a pretty hard job and does it well, and the whole cast lands it nicely. The elderly characters are both portrayed by actors younger than their age, and I think the makeup is less convincing on the man, Howard. The film is pretty funny and almost metafictional with its dialogue and camera shots, and captures its time period well.
X is a story about aging, opportunity, dreams, naivete, and sexual norms, but it's also an entertaining throwback to the grimy, gritty cinema of the 70s. As one film, it's brilliant. As the center of a trilogy...it's genius.