The most extraordinary screen performance by an actress in 2022 is one that you probably haven’t seen. In the closing credits of director Ti West’s horror movie Pearl, Mia Goth – a 29-year-old Brit playing a psychopathic Texan woman waiting for the return of her husband from the war in 1918 – looks right down the barrel of the camera, maintaining a toothy grin despite the tears streaming down her cheeks.
For six unbroken minutes, Goth’s expression remains fixed as she delivers a monologue detailing her character’s heartbreaking descent into sociopathy with just her eyes. It is, by any reasonable measure, worthy of an Oscar nomination.
