MaXXXine explained

What is MaXXXine about?

MaXXXine is Ti West’s masterpiece. It concludes his X trilogy and touches on so many things. The primary concern is the pursuit of and paths to fame. It criticizes Hollywood but also the way news media started producing stars of its own. For some, infamy is just as rewarding. There’s a cynical view that to achieve fame, to be a star, you have to be a monster. And West doesn’t dispute that. In fact, he embraces it. People like Maxine and the Night Stalker get exactly what they want because they’re willing to cross every line to get there. As much as West criticizes Hollywood, he still believes in cinema. MaXXXine draws a line in the sand. On one side, you have product. On the other side, you have art. And art still matters because it can be an antidote for the poisons of the world.

Cast

• Maxine Minx – Mia Goth
• Young Maxine – Charley Rowan McCaine
• Producer – Daniel Lench
• Leon Green – Moses Sumney
• Elizabeth Bender – Elizabeth Debicki
• Teddy Night – Giancarlo Esposito
• John Labat – Kevin Bacon
• Detective Williams – Michelle Monaghan
• Detective Torres – Bobby Cannavale
• Molly Bennet – Lily Collins
• Tabby Martin – Halsey
• Make-up artist – Sophie Thatcher
• Written by – Ti West
• Directed by – Ti West

MaXXXine and Ti West’s X trilogy — the pursuit of stardom

To get the most out of MaXXXine you have to understand what Ti West has been doing with the X trilogy. The overriding theme is the influence cinema has on individuals (the promise of stardom) and society (the way movies shape values and morals, and how that can conflict with other forces, like religion). 

So in Pearl, which takes place in 1918, we see how the rise of Hollywood creates dreams of being on the big screen and what that does to someone like Pearl. She uses movies as a way to escape the limitations of life on a farm, during the Spanish flu pandemic, during World War I. It’s a time that asked for self-control, patience, and resilience. But Pearl is so obsessed with the allure of the Hollywood dream, with being a star, that it activates her most selfish and violent behaviors. 

X jumps forward to 1979. Maxine also wants to be a star. But there’s a different process. The only opportunity Pearl had was through an organized system—try-outs for a dance tour put on by a church—that serves as a microcosm for the Hollywood system where your fate is in the hands of so many decision-makers. But 1979 saw the rise of both the individual movement and independent filmmaking that worked outside of any system. Ti West used adult films and slashers as the embodiment of that ethos, and rightly so, as the combination of sex, violence, and artistic autonomy that broke into the mainstream has continued to shape society to this day. 

Which brings us to MaXXXine. We’re no longer outside of Hollywood looking in. Maxine is there. Trying to thrive rather than just survive. This has been her dream. Pearl’s dream. The dream of so many others. And West shows how brutal the environment is. It’s this damned place where everything is gray and dingy, where you aren’t safe walking home, going to parties, or at work. Violence abounds. Sex abounds. On the streets, on the news, in the movies themselves.

West ultimately says “You want to be a star? This is what it takes.” And shows how Maxine has to sacrifice her social life, her friends, her family, how her past comes back to haunt her, and how she has to navigate situational attacks, personal attacks, and real world drama. All of that is done in a stylized, dramatized, hyperbolic way, but it serves as a metaphor for the very real price celebrities pay for fame. The total commitment fame demands. And even then…Maxine isn’t a movie star. She’s only, after all of that, a celebrity in the news. 

The end of MaXXXine and Pearl

I love this. I really do. So Pearl ends with Pearl abandoning her dream of being a star. Having failed to make the dance troupe, her entire sense of self comes crashing down and she goes from feeling special to saying she’s not attractive or smart or talented and is actually mean and murderous. She talks herself into her husband’s love being enough, so if he wants the farm to be a home then she’ll make it one. And then he returns from World War I and Pearl greets him, done-up like a housewife, holding a pitcher of lemonade, being as cliche as possible. She smiles but the smile hurts her. And the camera stays on her expression as the credits roll. We see her eyes fill with tears, the smile twists with pain. She’s clearly in a personal hell, living what is, hyperbole of her situation aside, a normal life.

Maxine becomes famous, infamous, on her way to stardom, and the last image of her is this fake head. This is not the first visual and situational callback to Pearl. West filled MaXXXine with such moments (something he mentioned in the Q&A after my screening). I’d say that’s done for two reasons. First, because it gives the trilogy a sense of unity. Second, because it primes viewers to make the connection between Maxine’s fake head and Pearl’s real one. How the former has become unreal in pursuit of fame. Pearl, despite everything, retained some humanity, even if it pained her. Maxine willingly surrenders hers.   

And isn’t that what happens to stars? They become a product. A prop. Something presented to the public after careful manufacturing. Nic Cage is really Nic Coppola. Natalie Portman was Neta-Lee Hershlag. Joaquin Phoenix? Joaquin Bottom. Whoopi Goldberg? Caryn Johnson. Mindy Kaling? Vera Chokalingam. 

Who is Maxine’s major antagonist? Her father. He represents who she was before becoming Maxine Minx, when she was just Maxine Miller, a girl with a dream who was taught to believe “I will not accept a life I don’t deserve.” 

So you have this interesting through-line from the end of Pearl to the end of Maxine. Someone who doesn’t get to live the dream isn’t happy with their life. And someone who does get to live the dream can’t be happy because their existence has been reduced to this artificial thing. Which makes Maxine’s final words a bit haunting. “I just never want it to end.” Because underneath the seeming satisfaction with the attention is the fact that she’s desperate. She has nothing else. No one else. Her family is gone. Her friends are gone. She has no romance. Attention is, for her, the only form of affection. Can that possibly be enough?

There’s a reason the song “Bette Davis Eyes” starts playing. 

Bette Davis Eyes

I know it’s annoying when people start diving into deeper meanings. But when you’re choosing the song to cap off your trilogy of films about Hollywood…you’re putting some time and effort into it. So let’s start by looking at the lyrics.

Notice the references to classic Hollywood actresses. Jean Harlow. Bette Davis. Greta Garbo. So clearly the song has relevance to what West’s saying with MaXXXine. Let’s explore further, though. Harlow, Davis, and Garbo were considered beautiful women—sex symbols, even—who pushed feminist boundaries and paved the way for those who would come after. But the song doesn’t get into who they were and what they accomplished. It’s Harlow’s hair. Davis’s eyes. And Garbo’s mystique. None of that is negative. It’s just reductive, limited, commodifying, fetishizing. 

The obvious reading is to say West’s using the song to describe Maxine. And it plays into the dehumanization that’s part of becoming a star. Maxine joins the conga line of women who came before her. And there will be others after. 

I think the more likely reading is that the song is about Hollywood. That the industry is the “she” who teases and makes everyone uneasy and exposes and steals the qualities of the women it devours. 

Bonus

Another layer! The “Bette Davis Eyes” used  in the film is the version by Kim Carnes that was insanely popular in the 80s. But it’s actually a cover of Jackie DeShannon’s original from 1975, written after DeShannon had watched a movie, Now, Voyager, that starred Davis. 

This is going to get into the weeds but bear with me. West has been meticulous in writing this trilogy. So I don’t think it’s outrageous to suggest we look at Now, Voyager. And one of the first details is that the title is from a poem by Walt Whitman called “The Untold Want”, from the lines: The untold want by life and land ne’er granted/Now, voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find. This whole trilogy has been driven by two characters, who are one and the same, who want nothing more than to be a star. Maxine’s entire arc is sailing forth to seek and find. 

If you think that’s a reach, here’s the Wikipedia summary for Now, Voyager’s premise: Charlotte Vale is a drab, quiet, overweight, neurotic woman whose life is brutally dominated by her mother, an aristocratic Boston dowager who verbal and emotional abuse of her daughter has contributed to Charlotte’s complete lack of self-confidence. 

While the rest of the plot isn’t necessarily relevant—though has details you could argue for—that initial setup is similar to Pearl. Pearl is also “drab” and under the intense control of her mother. It’s also a movie from 1942 that’s very much in the era of films that Pearl references. So you have this cool, full-circle aspect as the origin of the song calls back to the start of the trilogy. 

“In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.”

The quote that opens MaXXXine comes from none other than Bette Davis herself. As much as we root for Maxine because she’s the main character…she’s not a good person. Granted, a lot of her worst actions are in self-defense, but she’s still selfish. After the audition, she arrogantly tells the other girls to go home. She demands Leon help her with the VHS but won’t tell him anything about what’s going on—and it eventually causes his death. Molly says she’s going to a party at a producer’s house and Maxine says nothing even though she’s aware of the fact that her two friends said the same thing before they died. 

There’s a whole subplot about women needing to help women, an idea that Maxine continuously rejects because she’s too selfish. I believe at one point Maxine literally says “Maybe she should save herself.” The one woman she kind of tries to help, Detective Williams, doesn’t survive. So as much as we root for Maxine, she is a monster only interested in her own pursuits. 

Elizabeth Bender summarizes a lot of the themes

Keeping in mind what we’ve talked about so far. Let’s look at the speech the director gives Maxine midway through the film. 

The tension between Hollywood and censorship is something West introduced in Pearl via having one of the first heavily censored films, the 1917 Cleopatra, playing at the local theater. Then The Projectionist character shows a stag film to Pearl in private. There’s this hint of sex that’s still not accepted. That becomes more relevant in X. And then very pointed in MaXXXine. 

The question of being ruthless gets back to the Bette Davis quote about needing to be a monster to be a star. 

The artist line is another critique of Hollywood. But not necessarily moral in the way the earlier one was. This time, it’s about risk. The 1980s saw a rise in gritty, auteur-driven movies that followed the success of independent filmmakers in the 70s. Bender’s a byproduct of that shift. She isn’t making a Hollywood classic that repackages trite messages. She’s saying something more. Which is pretty much Ti West speaking through the character and telling us the point of the X trilogy. 

Maxine is a killer  but not a villain, the same way anti-heroes played by Eastwood and Bronson became all the rage. 

The lines about Psycho and people protesting and the irony of them having their own demons foreshadows Maxine confrontation with her father. He’s an old preacher who ends up being a serial killer. His flock are the ones protesting The Puritan II. Except they’re also making their own movie trying to expose Hollywood. But in doing so, they partake in all kinds of horrible things that go against their morals. Like, you know, murder. So West’s highlighting the fact that the people who complain the most about art probably aren’t innocent. 

And then the “belly of the beast” refers to Hollywood itself and how much it demands. Which is something we talked about earlier. Specifically how you can view the story as a defamiliarization of Maxine cutting ties with “distractions”. So her friends dying is just a metaphor for her leaving them behind. The conflict with her father represents him trying to be part of her life in Hollywood and her kicking him to the curb. We actually see a more grounded version of that in Babylon, when Nellie LaRoy becomes a breakout star, her dad becomes her manager and actually starts ruining everything.

Even if you disagree with some of my specific explanations throughout this article, keep this speech in mind when you come to your own conclusions, because it’s one of the few times West actually gets on a soap box and tells us “Hey, this is what the movie is about.” 

What was Pearl’s dad’s plan? Was he the producer?

The other time West gets on a soap box is in the dialogue from Maxine’s dad. Yes, her dad was the Producer asking all these girls to come to a party at the mansion (foreshadowed by the Psycho reference). You can read in the dialogue below that his plan was to prove Hollywood’s evil by releasing a movie exposing Hollywood. The irony was probably lost on him.  

Mr. Miller: Ah the star. Well don’t you see? Hollywood’s stolen you from me. And so many other poor children. Satanists have been producating sex and violence right in our homes for years now, weaponizing the television set, brainwashing our youth. Turning them into de-vi-ants. We will put a stop to them together. I, and the other grieving parents like me, have come forth to expose the devil, once and for all. Satan is inside of you my darling, but I can take him out. It will be the climax of the film! 

A few scenes later, when Maxine’s tied to the tree and they’re about to film. Miller: Don’t be frightened. I’m going to give you what you always wanted. You’ll be more famous than anything Hollywood could conjure. Fame that will never end. I tried to help your friends. But they wouldn’t accept God’s love. So they were punished by His wrath. But not you. You will be saved. 

And then when they start filming. Quote: Tonight, I document an exorcism. A form of miracle. For the whole world to see. Ezekiel 16, chapter 14. “Your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect, because of My splendor, which I bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. Evidence of your possession shall finally reveal Hollywood as the cult it is, luring children into lives of sin. The devil is real, and he deserves no place on the screens in our homes. I have come to save all lost children. 

While Maxine’s dad is crazy and a hypocrite, since he also weaponized the TV and plans to make a movie to do the same, he’s also summarizing major themes of the trilogy. The Hollywood dream does lure children to Los Angeles. Hollywood did turn sex and violence into a product that it then put into homes. But it didn’t turn people into deviants. People have always been deviant. You can literally go to the ruins of Pompeii and look at the remains of a brothel that still has the menu carved into the stone wall. Movies did not inspire gladiator battles in the Coliseum. We’ve always warred and f***ed. 

As much as I’ve harped on Hollywood’s faults, the actual first scene in MaXXXine is the home movie. Mr. Miller encourages Maxine to be a star and to not accept anything else than the life she deserves. Hollywood does lie. It is insidious. But is it to blame? Miller is the one who encouraged Maxine to think of herself as a star, to pursue being a star. And as much as Miller criticizes Hollywood—he’s the one who kills, not the industry. And part of the reason Pearl is so desperate to escape the farm is because her mom is incredibly strict and unrelenting. It seems part of that is because the mom’s scared of Pearl and thinks Pearl is dangerous. But it seems like a chicken-or-the-egg situation. You have to wonder if more nurturing would have allowed Pearl to tap into the better part of her nature. 

And Miller’s point about “more famous than anything Hollywood could conjure” relates to the rise of news media being so prolific.  

News and Hollywood

Throughout X, we see a preacher, Miller, on various TVs, who talks about the evils of sex and how deviants stole his daughter (who we eventually find out is Maxine). In one scene, a gas station attendant eagerly watches the program. This opens up a conversation about how TV has started to shape culture. 

When we get to MaXXXine, things have escalated. There’s a montage of harrowing news story after harrowing news story. It’s no longer a random preacher on TVs in rural Texas. It’s networks broadcasting to a city of millions. And that establishes a tone. If they only report on violence, sex, and ugliness—what happens to society? We see how much Maxine’s Los Angeles mirrors what’s on the news. And, given the premise of the trilogy, it’s fair to say that what’s on the news is partly inspired by what’s in the movies. 

The 1970s and 1980s made cinematic violence cool. So the news reports on violence. And then you end up with someone like the Night Stalker. Fun fact, as of 2021, California had 1628 serial killers. The next closest state was Texas with 893. Hulu even made a docu series called City of Angels, City of Death because Los Angeles has had so many serial killers. “During the 1970s and 1980s, Los Angeles was a city gripped with fear as more than 20 serial killers were operating simultaneously within a five-mile radius.” (from Oxygen). 

Why LA has so many serial killers could be for innumerable, never-definable reasons. But Ti West uses that as a backdrop to say “Perhaps it’s because of the relationship between Hollywood and media and how those things influence people.” 

There’s another wrinkle. Back in Pearl’s day, the only way to become a star was via Hollywood. During X, it’s the Golden Age of Porn. Plenty of women used adult films to become stars, like Linda Lovelace. But in the 80s, infamy through news media became another path. That’s why West had Halsey’s character mention the Black Dahlia. Elizabeth Short is a pop culture figure because the Black Dahlia case was so popular due to the media coverage it’s received for 80 years, to this very day. Short’s story has been turned into movies, novels, TV shows, and so many documentaries, video essays, and podcast episodes/series. 

Richard Ramirez, the actual Night Stalker, became a celebrity for the same infamous reasons. And we see something similar with Maxine. The final confrontation with her dad and his parish becomes a major story. And Maxine is, it seems, suddenly famous because of it. Not for her talent. Not for her work. But because her dad was a lunatic who brainwashed a bunch of other lunatics into a murder cult in the guise of religion. 

Maybe Maxine can use that momentum to turn Puritan II into a success and become the star she wishes to be. But maybe not. And if that’s the case, was it worth it? Was it worth losing all of her friends? Her family? Her body? Her time? Bender makes a comment about time being the most important thing. Has Maxine wasted hers? Or was this taste of fame worth all the years put into the pursuit?

One touch I appreciated was when Maxine walks down a street. She passes a karate dojo. A military surplus/weapon store. Then (if I remember correctly) TVs showing the news. The Karate Kid came out in 1984. MaXXXine’s set in 1985. So I think the dojo was a nod to that film’s popularity. Likewise, Eastwood and Bronson movies were all the rage, so you have the store for weapons and supplies. And then the news reinforcing all of this violence that was such a part of Hollywood at the time. 

In that same vein, having Kevin Bacon play the PI is another nod to the period. Footloose came out in 1984 and made Bacon an immediate heartthrob. He’s been famous ever since. So you have West using one of the decade’s most famous names to play one of the film’s primary antagonists. 

I feel like there’s something here regarding the idea that Hollywood is simply a version of the fame machine. And that the machine evolves through the ages. Maybe there were people in 400 BC who went off because they wanted someone to write an epic poem about their deeds. Hollywood was the big fame machine of the 1900s. But then you could become famous by being on the news. Today, it’s social media. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. Go viral and it changes your life. 

The end of MaXXXine—the Hollywood sign and the camera in the sky

At the very end of MaXXXine, the camera lofts across Los Angeles and over to the hills. We see that the Hollywood sign now says Maxxxine. Obviously that’s not literal. The most basic explanation is that it’s simply a clever version of a title card. You’re at the end of the movie, here’s the final title card, now roll credits. 

You could also view it as confirmation that Maxine does take over Hollywood. She becomes the star she always wanted to be. That would coincide with the camera continuing up into the sky and then settling on the literal stars in outer space. You could say she’s now one of them. Or go Lion King with it and say those are the stars of old looking down on her and she’ll one day join them.

Those are more glass-half-full readings. The glass-half-empty reading would be that the sky is littered with stars. The same way Hollywood has been. And so Maxine isn’t as special as she thinks she is. And if we view Hollywood as a problem, which is the position West seems to take throughout the trilogy, then what’s it mean that Maxine is now part of the industry? The star of the industry? Isn’t she going to be the one selling this dream to other people? A dream that starts them on the same path as she and Pearl? Isn’t that actually kind of sad? 

The glass-half-empty reading of the sign relates to what we discussed earlier about Maxine becoming a product, as symbolized by the decapitated head on the bead. You go from the head to the sign. So the sign is further confirmation of the commodification of Maxine. 

Another way to see the last shot of the stars is that it makes a point that the universe is much larger than Hollywood. And while that may be everything for Maxine, it’s actually a very small, small part of everything. And maybe we shouldn’t let it influence us as much as it does. 

The first shot of Pearl, X, and MaXXXine

Pearl’s opening shot is within the barn. The doors open and we get the idyllic sight of the farm. The grass is emerald. The sky is sapphire with picturesque clouds. Chickens peck the yard. It’s nice. 

X also starts within the barn. Except the doors are already open. The grass isn’t so green. The sky is overcast. The paint on the house has lost its luster. No chickens. A police car pulls up. The whole thing reeks of decline, ruin. 

MaXXXine (ignoring the home video) also starts within a “barn” except it’s really a movie studio. And when the door opens, it reveals how harsh everything inside is. No natural light. No grass. No animals. Concrete. Sheet metal. Machinery. And outside it’s more buildings just like this one. It’s the dreary reality of production, not the magic and mirage of the final product.

While I wouldn’t say that the X trilogy makes a case that life is better outside of Hollywood, there’s something to the fact that Pearl couldn’t appreciate what she had because she kept comparing it to what she saw in the movies and her idea of a celebrity’s glamorous life. When you see the farm, many of us probably think, “Oh, that’s nice.” When you see the soundstage, you definitely don’t think, “That’s nice.” You think, “Oh…that’s…gloomy.” 

I think, if anything, West is trying to demystify the Hollywood dream. To remove the illusion. So people who go to Hollywood are there for the right reasons—to do the work. To say something, be part of something. Instead of pursuing it under the false belief that Hollywood is some Oz, some Technicolor playground that’s so much more wonderful than the Kansas you call home. It’s not. 

Whether intentional or not, I do think one response to the X trilogy will be that people may covet the Hollywood dream a little less. 

The X trilogy is anti-Hollywood, not anti-movies

It would be strange for Ti West, a filmmaker, to make a statement that movies corrupt. So please don’t think that’s what I’ve been saying. I believe his point is that movies are powerful and have a tremendous influence on people. And such influence can become pernicious when handled by an industry that presents itself so falsely. 

West actually makes a point that the porn industry was part of the democratization of cinema. And while The Puritan II might be a B-movie, it’s still, like Pearl, X, and MaXXXine, a work of art full of A-ideas. And that’s important. Because it sends a different message to the world than Hollywood’s own.

Do houses in Los Angeles really have gondolas like that?

Some! In the Q&A that followed my screening, West said he went to a fancy party in the hills and the house had two parts and you had to take a gondola to get between them. So he always wanted to use that for a film. In the case of MaXXXine, they built the gondola.