‘MaXXXine’ Review: Ti West Builds a Detailed Playground of Sex and Violence for Mia Goth to Shine but Can’t Quite Seal the Deal
There is a lyric from the “Candle in the Wind” that came into my memory as the events of Ti West’s MaXXXine were unfolding; “Hollywood created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid.” The song, written and composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin back in 1973, is largely about the tragic downfall and tender memory of the legendary actress Marilyn Monroe and how her image on the screen will be her everlasting legacy. While on the surface, that understanding of the song is still correct, one can also interpret the song as a cautionary examination of how Hollywood can easily discard someone, no matter who they are, resulting in a deeply emotional, psychological battle to continue to hang onto the fame that the artist has, and sadly leading to disturbing results. This is the fundamental point that West is exploring with MaXXXine, as we find our titular character struggling to make her rise to the top of the Hollywood food chain, and keep what little fame she already has before her violent, horrific past catches up to her and crashes all of her dreams of becoming a real movie star.
Set in 1985, six years after “The Texas Porn Star Massacre” aka the events of 2022’s X, Maxine Miller (Mia Goth), the sole survivor, has moved to Los Angeles, changed her last name to Minx, and become a recognizable name in the adult film industry. But as we know from X and the series prequel Pearl, our titular character’s dreams don’t stop at just being a famous name in porn, but a movie star in serious films that debut all around the world. She wants to be a household name, and when we are first introduced to her at the beginning of this film, Goth brilliantly showcases how Maxine has grown from when we last saw her, and she now carries a calm presence about her that exudes confidence. “You might as well go home, I fucking nailed that” is what Maxine yells at the other girls waiting to audition for a role in the horror sequel “The Puritan II,” an experimental flick that is being directed by an up-and-coming, tough-as-nails director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) who is being given a bigger budget to create whatever she wants after the success of the first film in this fictional franchise. Bender as a character feels like a mirror for Ti West himself, sticking her neck out for Maxine by offering her the role that will become her big break, much like he did with Goth in real life. But there is more to this meta angle, as West has been someone who has been through the grind of the Hollywood system, spending the last decade or so trying to find his place in the modern cinematic landscape. “Studios hate artists, or people who want to upset the status quo,” is a line spoken by Bender to Maxine on the backlot of the studio where they work, just a couple of steps away from where the infamous Bates Motel from Psycho was shot (special shout out to production designer Jason Kisvarady for this moment and his work throughout the film). West is telling the audience the dirty little secret about Hollywood of the 1980s, where auteur filmmaking was put aside by the franchises and sequels churned out by the studio machines, looking a lot like what we are going through right now. With this commentary in mind, West aims to take a swing at creating something completely original on an elevated budget from the previous installments.
After her audition, Maxine jumps into her car, blasting the latest number one hit from the American Top 40 countdown “St. Elmo’s Fire” by John Parr (alongside a ton of other 80s classics from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Animotion, Kim Carnes, and more), heads to her other job at “The Landing Strip,” the location of the porn studio where she works by day near the airport. Her time is spread thin by her work in the skin flicks and her job as a model in a peep show in downtown LA, right on Hollywood Boulevard where sex and drugs are being exchanged like candy and various shady characters roam the streets at night. Over the past six years, Maxine has forged friendships in this community, most notably with Leon (Moses Sumney), an owner of a video rental shop located right below where Maxine lives, and Tabby Martin (Halsey), a fellow porn star who has worked with the streets and shows with Maxine. While they have become part of her life, Maxine has done a good job at keeping most relationships pretty distant, throwing herself into work on a day-to-day basis, declining invitations to go out after work with her friends because she has to be up the next day for either work or another audition. So when Tabby asks her to go to a party in the Hollywood Hills with her after work, she declines as usual and heads home, not knowing that this will be the last time she sees her friend as Tabby is entering a trap set up by a sinister killer that is murdering innocent girls for sport. While the events in the film are going on, West ties this time period to a horrific crime spree that took place in the mid-80s with the Night Stalker, an infamous case of a murderer who killed dozens of victims over the course of the summers of 1984 and 1985. In doing this, West raises the stakes of every step Maxine takes walking home at night, not knowing if the film’s killer or the Night Stalker are one and the same or two separate figures that could come and attack her at any moment. But as we know, our protagonist is a fighter, as we see when a mugger dressed as Buster Keaton tries to take her purse one night and she pulls a gun on him, leaving him wishing he never picked on her.
Once she is home, we come to realize that the killers on the loose might be the least of her problems as John Labat (Kevin Bacon), a private investigator from Louisiana, has been hired by a mysterious, powerful client to track down Maxine and get her connected with his boss. When she refuses to acknowledge him, it is revealed that he knows the truth about the Texas murders, who she really is, and is willing to expose her real identity to the world if she doesn’t meet with his employer. In a performance that can only be described as a mixture of Benoit Blanc meets Ethan Hawke meets discount Jake Gittes from Chinatown (nose bandage and all), Bacon delivers a deliciously campy spectacle as this low-rent private eye who becomes a thorn in Maxine’s side as he is chasing her around L.A, trying to get her to complete his mission. There is a particularly hilarious scene where he is following her in his car and she gets out and beats the living hell out of him with her keys, as well as each of them running after each other on the film set she works on; the feeling of watching two cartoon characters within a live action film. But each refusal she makes of Labat comes with a cost, and as her friends start becoming missing or found dead, Maxine must enlist all her remaining connections to see that her story isn’t written by anyone except herself.
These consequences are in large part of Maxine’s past catching up to her, and the guilt she has from her unresolved trauma. Sure she is still shaken by visions of Pearl (played by Goth in the two previous films), the murderous old lady she killed to save herself, we see her have a panic attack while her head is being molded for her role in the horror picture. It’s a suffocating scene that is the best display of the uneasy horror West effortlessly displayed in X and his various other works throughout his career. Beyond that, she is also running from her childhood and the religious background that surrounded her. As the daughter of a televangelist, she escaped the clutches of her father and his cult-like following and rebelled against his teachings to become a star and become someone bigger than he could ever be. As she is making her big break, it is poetic that protestors are located right outside the studio gates, angry at how provocative the entertainment industry has become. “Hollywood has become Satan’s playground,” and other messages are screamed by a bunch of religious fanatics, and we see their numbers growing and growing as the events of the film go on. West, in a Q&A following my screening, talked about this being the rise of parental control in the 1980s, where ultra-conservative parents rebelled against the entertainment industry, looking for bans and warning labels on all content coming from Hollywood, with his film taking place a year after the MPAA created the PG-13 rating. It is a fascinating idea to include as not just a call back to the first film and the religious connection within that picture to Maxine’s life, but as a showcase for how a limiting viewpoint like this blocks creative, individual freedom and thus can corrupt art at its very core.
West’s detailed build-up within the first two acts of the film is some of the best work of his career, alongside excellent period-specific costume design by Mari-An Ceo and cinematography by Eliot Rockett. It is a showcase of what a singular stylist he has become within the X universe, making distinct character studies that showcase not only his creative passion but one of the brightest actresses we have working today in Mia Goth. In MaXXXine, much like her work in the previous installments, Goth is able to take full command of a layered, complex character who will stop at nothing to make sure her fame isn’t just a passing moment, but spark of something special that will live longer after she has retired from the big screen.
But there is a problem that does lie in MaXXXine, and that is the rushed, uninspired third act that makes the decision to turn this less into a horror, slasher film and make it an 80s action crime thriller. This dramatic, tonal turn might’ve worked if it didn’t feel like the emotional equivalent of a shoulder shrug, fully suggesting there isn’t any real danger for Maxine to confront at the end of the film, and thus her story will have a nice and neat finale. Plus, throw in the thankless performances of Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale as two Los Angeles detectives who are following Maxine around in the off chance she will lead them to the killer, and the finale just seems to contradict West’s premise of allowing an artist to go all out with their passion project. Does this erase the stellar first two thirds of MaXXXine? No, it doesn’t and West and company should be proud of what they built here. But it does make this the safest entry in the franchise so far, and takes away the chance of this being something truly special.
Grade: B
A24 will release MaXXXine only in theaters on July 5.
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