REVIEW: ‘Miller’s Girl’ Is A Bland Southern Shell

Written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett, Miller’s Girl tries to be interesting in its inappropriate tale of a student falling in love with a teacher. Ultimately though, it’s a timid type of boring with a cast that is either doing too much or too little.

The film stars Martin Freeman as Mr. Henry Miller and Jenna Ortega as the awkwardly named Cairo Sweet. Cairo is a trust-fund baby left home alone in a Southern mansion. She’s desperate for a life she reads about in her books. These entail classic literature, erotica, and Mr. Miller’s book, of course. Miller is a washed-up writer turned teacher who is constantly belittled by his wife, Beatrice (Dagmara Domińczyk). Their marriage is more animosity than love. This sets up the perfect storm for a man looking to be seen as a writer and a student looking for adventure.

The back and forth behind Cairo and Mr. Miller starts the moment the talented young writer enters his class. Capturing his attention by name-dropping his book, Cairo receives her mid-term assignment early, which is to write a term paper in the style of a writer you admire. She crafts an erotic story that launches them into a game of push and pull. Toeing the line and crossing it slightly, the two become enemies as their relationship (or lack thereof) becomes known.

Miller and Cairo are not alone in their inappropriate back and forth as a side plot between a gym teacher (Bashir Salahuddin) and Cairo’s desperately lonely friend (Gideon Adlon) unfolds. This side plot is concerning and detestable but somehow lacks any shock value at the same time. We’re supposed to believe, in the end, that Cairo is pulling every string in the story. She’s manipulating people, pushing them, but the only hint of any of it is Ortega’s pretentious narration, painting how Cairo sees the story.

Miller’s Girl wants to be a Southern Gothic romance and thriller simultaneously. The South’s setting and sensuality are well-used in film and romance, but instead, the South devours the film. It begins with the ill-placed atmosphere and continues with the horrid takes on accents.

Martin Freeman’s accent ebbs and flows throughout the film. Sometimes, he attempts a light Southern drawl; other times, his natural British-speaking voice pokes through. Other times, he still has an everyday newscaster American accent. It is entirely miscast for a film that wants to use the South and its stillness as a character in the film as much as Mr. Miller and Cairo.

Ortega’s accent is not better, either. She also oscillates between her normal speaking voice and that of someone who grew up in the South for at least some period of time. Either way, the Southern setting is either out of place or the actors are. Regardless, this yields frustrating performances from everyone involved.

Miller’s Girl lives in that subgenre of “student falls in love with teacher” drama. It doesn’t expand on it or add anything new. It’s a throwback to the 1990s and early aughts without any transgressive purpose or awareness of where it exists in the larger drama lexicon.

To make a drama like this, the filmmaker must know its message, the genre they’re exploring, and the taboos it plays with. Instead, Miller’s Girl is just there, a shadow of the film’s past and neither exciting nor transgressive in nature. It’s just boring. And in a film aimed at pushing buttons, you absolutely can’t be boring.

Miller’s Girl is playing in theaters now.