MaXXXine (2024)

It is now 1985, 6 years after the conclusion of the events of X. Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), having left her home state of Texas for Los Angeles, has made a name for herself in the adult film industry. But she has her sights set on a higher prize. She wants to work in a “real” movie. She wants to be famous like Brooke Shields is famous, and she’s not going to let anything get in her way. Not even the mysterious employer who’s hired private investigator John Labat (Kevin Bacon) to track her down and threaten to blackmail her about her past.

Of the three films in the series, MaXXXine has been the least favorably received. While I can understand that assessment when comparing the movies one to another, I found it to be generally entertaining nonetheless. Ti West and crew did a fantastic job of capturing a 1980s Hollywood aesthetic that felt authentic rather than contrived. The set pieces, the on-location shots, the wardrobe, the props, the color palette, the soundtrack – all cultivated with a meticulous attention to detail of time and place.

At the center of it all is Mia Goth, who has undoubtedly invested a lot of herself into the trilogy. Not only playing both Maxine and old Pearl in X, but then young Pearl in the prequel (along with a writing credit), and reprising her role as Maxine in the sequel. She knows these characters, their histories, backstories, motivations, and desires. This comes through in her performances, including in this final entry. For anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, things start to feel very meta. There is the movie within a movie, an actress playing an aspiring actress who has landed a role in a horror film after working in porn. Goth has never worked in adult films like Maxine, but there were those risqué scenes in Nymphomaniac (2013) that started her film career. The lines between acting and real life occasionally felt blurred. Never to the point of taking me out of the story. More so as a performer drawing from their lived experience to strengthen the connection to the role they are playing.

In the end, MaXXXine may not reach the heights of its predecessors, but it brings the trilogy to a close with a sense of style and purpose. West’s vision of Hollywood as a place where ambition and exploitation blur together feels like a fitting backdrop for Maxine’s final ascent. Goth’s performance ties the three films together with a through‑line of hunger, defiance, and vulnerability. Even if the film doesn’t land every swing, it provides a satisfying final act for a character who has fought relentlessly to define herself on her own terms.