Mia Goth shines as a fame-seeking porn star navigating a world of danger and dreams in Ti West’s slasher ode to Tinseltown.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
What if “Sunset Boulevard” were a slasher film? That’s one of the questions I asked myself while watching “MaXXXine,” Ti West’s third and probably final installment in a series of films that began with “X” in 2022. The series features modern-day scream queen Mia Goth (“Infinity Pool”) as both Maxine “Max” Minx, a preacher’s daughter-turned-porn star in “X;” and as fame-seeking, silent film-era farm worker Pearl in the prequel “Pearl” (also 2022). It’s Hollywood-here-I-come in the triple-X’d “MaXXXine,” a film with connections to Damien Chazelle’s Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt-fronted, early sound-era, Hollywood expose (and flop) “Babylon” (2022) and Quentin Tarantino’s Charles Manson/Sharon Tate-era comedy-drama “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” (2019).
Maxine has survived the bloody 1979 massacre of “X” and now supports herself in 1985 in Hollywood, where the real-life serial killer named the Night Stalker claims victims, by working as a porn star and stripper, although in opening scenes she auditions successfully for a role in a legit horror film (“The Puritan II”) being shot at a studio by director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki of “The Crown,” no less). Maxine, whose plucky motto is, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” zooms around the Hollywood Hills in her late-model Mercedes convertible. One of her friends and fellow porn worker (Halsey) invites Maxine to a party in the Hills with a film producer. Maxine wisely demurs.
Maxine speaks in a Southern hickory-smoked drawl (England-born Goth speaks with a posh accent). Maxine lives upstairs from a VHS video store run by her friend Leon (Moses Sumney). Her vanity plates read, MaXXXine. In stock footage, Tipper Gore calls for ratings labels on song lyrics. Maxine stamps out a cigarette on the sidewalk star of silent film vamp Theda Bara and keeps a jug of cocaine on her make-up table at Show World. Giancarlo Esposito is Maxine’s aptly-named lawyer, Teddy Night, Esq. A tall man dressed as Buster Keaton attacks Maxine in an alley with a switchblade (bad idea). But the real danger is the masked perv in black clothes and black leather gloves, who tracks Maxine down with the help of private eye John Labat (Kevin Bacon, swanning). If Labat reminds you of Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown” (1974), it’s because of the bandage on his nose.
In a coincidence only possible in Tinseltown, “MaXXXine” recalls Christina Hornisher’s newly rediscovered 1973 serial killer/art-house thriller “Hollywood 90028” as it gravitates inexorably to the iconic Hollywood sign in its final scenes. Branded corpses are found floating in a pool in a Hollywood cemetery. Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan show up as police detectives. Lily Collins has a nice cameo as a friendly, blood-spattered horror film actor. Writer-director West has the ballocks to raise the specter of a Faulknerian past in the midst of his darkly comic, Hollyweird, balancing act.
“MaXXXine” also shares ideas and themes with Curtis Hanson’s 1997 James Ellroy adaptation “L.A. Confidential.” Ellroy is Hollyweird in the flesh, and “MaXXXine” might be another of his twisted Hollywood confidentials. Further blending art and life, many scenes in “MaXXXine” were shot on the Universal lot, where we visit the Bates’ house and motel of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Bender calls Maxine a “Hitchcock blonde.” Debicki’s role is surprisingly insubstantial. Fundamentalist protesters on the lot claim Hollywood is in league with the Devil. Are they wrong? The Night Stalker’s victims pile up. Some of the effects (a blood-filled apple) go wrong. The seemingly cathartic Cronenberg bit near the end purges very little. But the camera loves the former Prada model Goth and her psychotic hustler Maxine. How is Carl Theodor Dryer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928) like a snuff film? Please discuss with like-minded film buffs over a firmly-tamped bong. I suspect Ti West did.
‘MaXXXine’
Rating: R for strong violence, gore, sexual content, graphic nudity, language, and drug use.
Cast: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Monaghan
Director-writer: Ti West
Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters July 5
Grade: B+
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