Pearl: Review

11th August 2020

Pearl (Larsen Thompson) lives with her mother, Eve (Sarah Carter) and step-father, Anthony (Nestor Carbonell). Then out of the blue one day, Anthony takes a rifle and shoots her mother, Helen and then himself. Now an orphan, Pearl only has her grandmother, Eve (Barbara Williams) to turn to, but Eve has problems with alcohol which leaves Pearl without many options.

Pearl’s only hope is to turn to family friends, but through a little digging the family lawyer finds one of Helen’s ex-boyfriends, Jack Wolf (Anthony LaPaglia) who may also be her real father.

Jack is a suicidal artist with a possible drinking problem, but with very little options, Pearl moves in with the man who may be her real father. Pearl’s exclusive private school has also turned their back on her. Considering the trauma that she has gone through it’s decided that Pearl will have to go to a regular high school.

Luckily that’s where Pearl meets Sylvia (Melissa Macedo) and they soon hit it off and form an unlikely bond despite Sylvia knowing the extent of Pearl’s privilege. Sylvia also meets a dashing young man named Zack (Nighttrain Schickele) and as their romance blossoms, life starts to get better and she finds that a new life may not be all that bad.

Pearl is a movie with a ‘made for TV’ quality that was lucky enough to get a digital and Laemmle Virtual Cinema release. Directed and written by Bobby Roth who’s best known for directing episodes of television’s best-known shows, it seems that on this occasion Roth is out of touch with his chosen subject.

There’s no character development whatsoever, no connection or chemistry among its cast and characters have massive mood swings which make no sense within the relationships they’ve already established, seemingly only done to move the plot along. Even if that means leaving plot threads open.

There are so many things shoved into the plot that they have little time to breathe, whereas the movie could have been served better concentrating on one or two things (Pearl’s real parentage and the trauma of losing her mother for example). However, Pearl makes no attempt at what could have been an emotional, albeit predictable drama leaving it feeling uninspired.

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