Miller's Girl

by Mike McGranaghan

Even after thinking about it for two days, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to take away from Miller’s Girl. It’s about an inappropriate relationship between a student and a teacher. The teacher undeniably crosses a line, yet the student sets out to make him cross it. Is she the victim here? Yes, I suppose she is in a sense. He's the adult and should know better. But you could argue he’s a victim, too. Is writer/director Jade Halley Bartlett attempting a “MeToo” statement, and if so, why does she make the female protagonist as culpable as the male?

The teacher is Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman). He once authored a not-very-popular book, then saw his writing career completely stall. A new student, Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega), enters his class. Unlike most teens, she’s well-read in the classics, with the erotic work of Henry Miller particularly appealing to her. Mr. Miller is thrilled by her enthusiasm and writing talent, leading him to become her mentor.

You can see where this is going – almost. Miller feels neglected by his perpetually drunk and distracted wife, a cute female student looks up to him, his judgement becomes clouded, et cetera and so on. There’s a hitch, though. Cairo’s best friend Winnie (Gideon Adlon) has been trying to seduce another male teacher, and she encourages Cairo to do the same to Miller. If not for that goading, teacher and pupil would likely have a totally healthy academic relationship.

I didn’t like either of these people. Maybe we’re not supposed to. If that’s the case, then Miller’s Girl has gone about things the wrong way. You can’t sympathize with Mr. Miller because he does act inappropriately towards Cairo. You can’t sympathize with her either because she’s portrayed as being manipulative, even writing thinly veiled erotic fiction designed to play into her instructor’s fantasy about being with her. The raw material is here for a cautionary tale about the power imbalance between a teacher and a student. Making Cairo a cunning schemer reeks of the film suggesting that she was “asking for it” – a dangerous proposition in a time when many women face the problem of sexual harassment.

Beyond that, the movie has all sorts of problems. Cairo’s supposedly “brilliant” writing is pretentious word salad, reflecting Bartlett’s own weak screenplay. Endless conversations between the two leads are as repetitive as they are lacking in heat. Miller’s wife, portrayed by Dagmara Dominczyk in an awkwardly over-the-top performance, behaves inconsistently, depending on what any given scene requires of her. An unsatisfying ending inspires us to wonder why we’ve spent 90 minutes with these characters.

Freeman and Ortega are both satisfactory in their roles, but they have no spark together, which is the biggest problem of all. Miller’s Girl might have said something worthwhile if we felt the forbidden sexual tension between the people they’re playing. We don’t, leaving us stuck with a picture that has an overinflated sense of its own importance.

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