‘Miller’s Girl’ Movie Review: Jenna Ortega Beguiles But Hot-For-Teacher Drama Is Too Self-Important
Photo from Lionsgate
From Jeremy Kibler
At first blush, Miller’s Girl seems like another variation on Poison Ivy, The Crush, or Chloe with a beguiling Jenna Ortega. In a way, it could be “The Hand That Rocks the Curriculum,” only filled with flowery prose and pointless ambiguity cluttering up an erotic drama. Writer-director Jade Halley Bartlett’s film debut does cook up a lurid tension within its Southern Gothic setting with actors who are willing to take chances with thematically provocative material. Unfortunately, those chances don’t really pay off with this well-photographed but tedious hokum that doesn’t seem to have a handle on its takeaway.
Living by herself in Tennessee while her parents are permanently abroad, 18-year-old student Cairo Sweet (Ortega) is clearly wise beyond her years in an intellectual sense. She’s already read the long list of suggested books before school even starts, which goes a long way toward impressing her English teacher, Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman), a washed-up writer who hasn’t written anything recently. Cairo and Mr. Miller do develop a friendship off-campus, but it’s more of a mentorship, plus the occasional sharing of a cigarette. When Mr. Miller gives Cairo a head start on a mid-term assignment that calls for her to write a short story in the style of her favorite author, Cairo chooses the sexually candid Henry Miller. Mr. Miller is, however, not prepared for her taboo, increasingly pornographic story that could very well be about him. Was there an actual seduction that took place, or is Cairo’s short story just a fantasy? Has he crossed a line? Has Cairo made him cross it?
This all reads like the summary of a Lifetime Original Movie — or, maybe now, it’s a movie made by Marvista Entertainment. But Miller’s Girl seems to have loftier pretenses, blurring the line between truth and writing assignment, as well as between victim and villain. Just by her clunky word salad of a voice-over, Cairo waxes philosophical to an obnoxiously overwritten extreme: “Lonely girl longs to be meaningful. Lonely girl longs to be loved. Books make longing seem romantic, but it’s awful. It’s greedy. And I wear longing like a fucking veil.” Now, just imagine characters speaking like this all of the time as if trying to impress an acclaimed writer.
Clearly, Bartlett’s script wants to explore a power imbalance between pupil and instructor. The counterpoint to Cairo and Mr. Miller’s possible liaison is the strange flirtation between Winnie (Gideon Adlon), Cairo’s lesbian best friend, and Coach Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin), Mr. Miller’s friend and colleague. Tennessee just seems to make everyone flirty, especially between teachers and their students. Coach Fillmore’s in-person interactions with Winnie, followed by texts, are very inappropriate, until he knows when to pull back and become the voice of reason. This subplot adds an interesting layer to the central story, but then it’s back to shifting sympathies with Cairo and Mr. Miller and there’s no chance of caring enough about either one of them in the end.
Jenna Ortega is an exceptional talent, bringing the spunk, poise, and intelligence we’ve seen her hone in other roles. This material might be her most mature and risky, if only because her young yet legal and cunning intellectual of a Lolita has a not-so-appropriate relationship with her teacher. If anything, Ortega is at least stretching here. Martin Freeman is believable enough as a man who gets caught in this young woman’s web, and Dagmara Dominczyk goes all-in as Mr. Miller’s emasculating alcoholic wife, a working writer. There’s no real fault with the performances, some of which take on a theatrical style, particularly Dominczyk and Adlon with their southern accents.
Miller’s Girl gets points for not becoming a preposterous thriller with a succession of twisty reveals, but did it have to be dullish and so self-important? Or, is this successful as camp? Failing to make up its mind about what it wants to say (especially in a post-#MeToo world), this frustrating misfire thinks it’s going far when it actually doesn’t go far enough.
Rating: 1.5/5
Miller’s Girl hits theaters on January 26th, 2024.
