In a music video for the mischievous pop album “Brat,” Charli XCX surrounds herself with a specific breed of hot girl. Julia Fox. Rachel Sennott. Chloe Cherry of “Euphoria” fame. They’ve all got that special something, an almost feral sense of self-actualization and sexiness that’s known to the Extremely Online as the essence of Brat Girl Summer.
“It’s definitely a je ne sais quoi kind of situation,” the singer-songwriter explains to her cunty cohort in the “360” music video.
“I would say it’s about being really hot in a scary way,” agrees one of the featured brats before another chimes in to say, “You have to be known, but at the same time unknowable.”
Brattiness as an aesthetic has taken over music, memes, and fashion in recent weeks through a flood of bleached eyebrows, neon green nail polish, and curse word-emblazoned tube tops. The micro movement has become visual proof that many attractive and successful young women no longer care to be universally liked or understood by the patriarchal masses. For some, brat-hood is a personal philosophy or act of political protest. To others, brat-ificiation is simply a matter of style and taste.
With Ti West’s visceral and moody “MaXXXine,” that ultra-modern trend has been crystallized as a sharp yet gawdy deconstruction of so-called female empowerment — arriving in theaters just in time for your cute little summer. A24’s reigning scream queen Mia Goth makes her fashionable and, yes, distinctly bratty return as Maxine Minx in this gruesome and vital last chapter for the “X” trilogy. If nothing else, the dazzling finale feels like a hyperviolent ‘80s period piece tailor-made For the Girls. It delivers some of the series’ most extreme kills as well as its best uses of glittery costumes, bloody testicles, and feminist subversion for a whirlwind joy ride that doubles as a societal lambasting.
Far removed from the site of what’s now known in-universe as the Texas Porn Star Massacre (that’s the cheeky name West has given the five-person farmhouse slaughter Maxine survived at the hands of Pearl and Howard back in 1979), our ex-“X” heroine is now living in Los Angeles circa 1985. Shiny and self-assured as ever, Maxine looks to be at full power but she’s got pain behind the eyes and demons to keep at bay. Never far off from her sexy-scary origins, the former adult film actress works a stripper at a bar near LAX by night while still pursuing that LIFE SHE DESERVES on the big screen by day.
“You can all go home, because I just fucking nailed that,” Maxine (gleefully unlikable but also awesome?) shouts as she exits an audition for something called “The Puritan II.” At least she’s right. She did nail it. Even as Maxine is haunted by violent flashbacks of the elderly couple that tried to kill her, she lets fear fuel her rising star — and she gets the part.
Set in the seamy underbellies of both the literal and metaphoric Hollywood, “MaXXXine” anchors its action and namesake in a film within a film. Once again, West is playing on slasher tropes to explore the fetishistic pursuit of celebrity through the lens of objectification. This time, however, his script is quick to acknowledge the tricks we’ve already seen him and Goth pull off before in franchise companions “X” and “Pearl.” Within minutes of the film’s start, Maxine looks straight to camera in a brief but genius homage to the famous one-shot monologue that ended West’s last movie. Goth performs all of Maxine’s emotional audition for “The Puritan II” right then — complete with a slate that sees her turn on tears like a faucet and sets the stage for Goth’s multi-dimensional performance that’s close to a career best.
In the middle of her big break, Maxine should find her biggest foes in the hard-as-nails director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki, elegant and cold) or her ambitious co-star Molly Bennett (Lily Collins, smiley and shallow). Instead, it seems our slippery heroine has escaped Hell only to find herself pursuing happiness in a landscape overwrought with even more danger and unseen enemies intent on dredging up her past.
A horror outing that as a matter of genre might be better classified as a psychosexual crime thriller, “MaXXXine” turns from fame-chasing fantasy to frenetic whodunnit when a mysterious figure in leather gloves sets out to get our final girl. Private investigator John Labat (Kevin Bacon, creepy and gold toothed) approaches Maxine about his shadowy client first. Not long after that, two LAPD detectives (Bobby Canavale and Michelle Monaghan, nicely matched) darken her doorway asking about the Night Stalker and a string of dead bodies. Maxine has a vicious entertainment lawyer (Giancarlo Esposito, doing his best Winston Wolf impression) and other allies by her side. But who needs to phone a friend when you’ve got a gun in your purse and house keys between your knuckles?
“MaXXXine” is Goth’s most well-rounded performance yet, blending elements of her mesmeric “X” characters with her earlier dramatic work and the modern villainy she brought to Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool” for a once-in-a-lifetime role. Giving the chameleonic actress more scene partners and set pieces to encounter than ever before in the City of Angels, West uses the final leg of Maxine’s story to imagine how a final girl’s trauma might fracture into a (wildly entertaining) vitriolic spray of revenge.
Last summer, audiences were reminded that even Barbies cannot be everything to everyone. Here, West challenges his fans to consider the death of women’s dreams from a different angle — as the inevitable peril of being at the top comes down hard on horror’s favorite wannabe A-lister. Standing at the end of a multi-generational Möbius strip for women’s autonomy, “MaXXXine” concludes its saga interrogating why anyone would punish a brat for surviving in style.
Grade: A-
An A24 release, “MaXXXine” is in theaters July 5.
