Miller's Girl
“Miller’s Girl” is essentially an hour and a half filmic rendition of the Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and it’s far more not than hot.
Film Yap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I didn’t know what to expect going into “Miller’s Girl” (in theaters including AMC Indianapolis 17 and VIP Legacy 9 in Greenfield, Ind. beginning Friday, Jan. 26). I knew it involved the relationship between a male teacher (Martin Freeman) and his female student (Jenna Ortega) and had a literary bent to it. Is it a comedy, a drama or a thriller – or some mix of all three? Having seen the film I can confirm it leans hardest into the dramatic while also having flourishes of erotic thrillers from the early 1990s involving teenage girls i.e. “Poison Ivy” and “The Crush.” It also harbors a profound air of pretension.
Jonathan Miller (Freeman) is in a rut. He’s a failed author teaching English at a Tennessee public school. He busies himself between periods by hanging and smoking with his baseball coach buddy Boris (Bashir Salahuddin). His evenings are spent in a loveless marriage to the alcoholic/workaholic Beatrice (Dagmara Dominczyk).
Miller’s life gets an injection of excitement with the arrival of Cairo Sweet (Ortega). Sweet is the only child of two travelling lawyer parents who have little time or mind for the daughter whom they’ve left to live in their palatial plantation all by her lonesome. She signed up for Miller’s class at the behest of her nympho nymph of a gal pal Winnie (Gideon Adlon).
Miller immediately recognizes Sweet’s talent and is flattered to discover she’s reading his book. Teacher and student quickly build a close bond – they share cigarettes and attend a poetry reading together. Miller gives Sweet a jump on mid-terms by granting early access to her assignment. She’s supposed to write a short story that emulates the style of an author she admires. She selects controversial author Henry Miller and pens a graphic tale chronicling an illicit affair between a teacher and a student.
“Miller’s Girl” is written, executive produced and directed by first-time filmmaker Jade Halley Bartlett. (It’s also produced by Point Grey pals Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.) It’s not a bad movie per se … more of a confused one. I don’t know what exactly it is Bartlett’s trying to say and I’m not entirely convinced she is either.
The film’s first half hour is interminable. Bartlett’s writing representing Miller and Sweet’s work is objectively poor and makes it hard to take either character seriously. The proceedings oscillate between preciousness and pretentiousness with frequent stops in “Icky Town.”
I do think the performances are generally better than the material itself. Freeman and Ortega are talented actors and acquit themselves accordingly. Dominczyk is given one deplorable note to play, but she plays it exceedingly well. Salahuddin extends the streak of likability he established as Hondo in “Top Gun: Maverick.” Adlon’s Winnie is initially presented as a braying idiot who baby talks and sways between horny (she longs to bang Boris) and hungry (“Chicky Bicky!”) before actress and character are impressively/surprisingly redeemed in the third act.
“Miller’s Girl” is essentially an hour and a half filmic rendition of the Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and it’s far more not than hot.