Directed by: Jade Halley Bartlett
Written by: Jade Halley Bartlett
\Starring: Martin Freeman, Jenna Ortega, Dagmara Domińczyk, Bashir Salahuddin
Rating: [1.5/5]
While narrative films deal in the world of fiction, the best of stories provide characters who feel real as the conduits of the stories. These characters don’t even have to be human to reach the desired effect of seeing a being navigate through what the film seeks to evoke. Well, Miller’s Girl did not get that memo in its efforts to tell this provocative story that establishes such an artificially weightless world and paper-thin characters not worth watching.
Simply navigating through life with his writing days well behind him, Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman) has a student in Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega), who’s far more advanced than everyone else. As he tutors her, Miller seeks to assist her in finding the source material that makes sense for her college admission essay but things get complicated as something begins to brew between them.
Having a level of artifice in one’s story does not hurt as it may give the overall production something a bit different to make it stand out but when an entire story hinges on it, it leaves much to be desired. That summarizes what it feels watching Miller’s Girl in that none of it carries weight as it does not feel real. These characters feel as if they live in a different dimension but in its efforts to tell this supposed messed up and sexy story, it just fails in having any actual weight to it. This appears in the smallest ways such as the fact we have this school where Sweet and Ortega always happen to be alone when in class together. Possibly a decision to keep this low-budget and not pay a host of extras to sit in the classroom but it makes these conversations feel a bit silly. What stakes could possibly exist if there’s truly nothing to hide from anyone?
If anything, this feature laid out its hand from the very onset by having the audacity to have a character named Cairo Sweet as its lead to really solidify its unseriousness. However, with everything described at this point, one would think this feature would inject some level of humor to acknowledge its ridiculousness, but no it feels overly serious in how it navigates through this story and how these characters act. A complete disservice, again, because we have a character named Cairo Sweet at the center of this story. It certainly does not help that this wet blanket is so devoid of a personality, she devises everything that transpires in this feature and it does not even elicit the slightest of shrugs.
Sweet navigates this story as a rich and bored girl looking for something exciting to bring spark to her life so her friend, and somehow the only other student in the school, Winnie (Gideon Adlon) suggests striking up a teacher-student affair with Miller. See, Winnie is also trying to do the same thing with somehow the only other teacher in the school, Boris Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin), who also happens to be Miller’s best friend. Therefore, we have this game of literary and physical seduction that ultimately just feels laughable to play out, which would have elicited more entertainment if this film had a laugh at itself, but instead it takes itself so seriously only further highlighting the flaws of this story.
On one hand, you can see what this film wants to display, as this emasculated and sexually frustrated man sees the potential for a release in a student who has taken an interest in his previous works. Combining this with Cairo’s genuine interest to have something salacious for her memories but even then, for as provocative as this film wants to get, it doesn’t even go far enough in any particular direction to even warrant what this film sells itself on. Therefore, it just plays itself as this game of words with nothing particularly interesting to say.
A complete nothing of a story, which no one involved, even Jenna Ortega, leaves unscathed, Miller’s Girl comes across as a complete misfire. A real head-scratcher of a film seeking to display something risqué but ultimately feels underdeveloped and mostly uninteresting in how it goes about its story and self-serious tone it refuses to abandon. As artificial of a film involving supposed real people you’ll see that presented nothing of real value.
Films with Josh 
