When a film’s identity meshes the crisis of creative stillness and the precarious affirmation-foddering between a student and teacher, it frankly sounds like a fixing for character disaster. The two players in the wreckage are Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman), who can be identified by his white tennis shoes and form-fitting shirts as a Vanderbilt-alum Cool Teacher, and Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega), a high school senior who joins his class in her last semester. Cairo comes prepared; she has finished the semester’s reading list and had brought additional self-chosen supplements, including Henry Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris and Jonathan’s rarely-read, lukewarm anthology Apostrophes and Ampersands.
You don’t have to convince me of the continual self-doubt writers go through, but another story of an older man at a writer’s crossroads meeting a teenage girl who, immersed into old-century romance and tantalizing literature, finds kinship and enjoys admiration from another fellow thinker? It could be Columbus, but I can say that it’s not. For clarify of the review, I also want to share that, despite Cairo’s silent drifting through school halls and wooden areas and Jonathan saying, “I thought there were ghosts living there,” when she discloses that she lives in an abandoned part of town, I have decided that Cairo is not dead and is very much an alive teenage girl (as much as adolescent ennui allows one to be). Cairo is played up as mysterious (as much as a high school student can be) and more engaging with Ortega behind the wheel. While holding a penchant for wit-speak and a dream for greatness, Cairo is bound to her pheromones when she finds herself desiring a professional and sexual interest from Jonathan. When he asks her to write a piece by imitating another writer, it’s not surprising that Cairo chooses Henry Miller to build a suggestive fantasy between her and Jonathan.
I can start with the biggest hesitation, which is, “Will they go there?” And the answer is: kinda. Miller’s Girl challenges the viewer when it presents situations and decisions that might invoke click-baity judgment. But a good story will allow an understanding from both sites. I can see that Cairo is searching for answers and gratification in the only place that she knows so far. I can believe that Jonathan believes that he has it under control. He is open about Cairo’s precociousness to his wife Beatrice, played by Dagmara Dominczyk (who plays her character with a such vicious sexiness that I feel like this small town would implode if Cairo had met her instead). He and another fellow teacher, Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin), acknowledge that Cairo’s excessive efforts with her flirty-forward friend Winnie (Gideon Adlon) are part of a game. But as Fillmore later mentions in the film, the difference is knowing where the line is.
The critical thinking of a life-experienced man should appear more powerful than the hormonal motives of a teenager, but watching Ortega and Freeman participate in a prey-predator dance that neither fully realize that they’re part of it is kinda fascinating. Some might interpret Cairo’s intentions to be a harmful approach to power dynamics, and this thread feels unfinished by the end. But, at the core, there is a realistic environment where misinterpretations, lowered defenses, and missteps can lead to a bad situation, which is the benefit of doubt I’ll give to Jade Halley Bartlett, who re-wrote the script after the #MeToo movement made her realize that positioning Cairo as the villain wasn’t going to work. As it is, a lot of people can relate to projecting a fantasized answer onto an older person, and Miller’s Girl isn’t afraid to address that at eye level.
Typically, I would have found this kind of story to add little to the discussion (I think of A Teacher, both in film and TV format, where the story’s salaciousness overpowers character compassion). But the film’s outfit of a modern Southern gothic tale of academic and creative woes feels like fresh air. It operates on a language that flirts with literary tongue twisters in a Tennessee cadence. Ortega, unsurprisingly, holds the fort down during tense moments (I haven’t watched Wednesday, but I sometimes have to look at the corner of the screen because Ortega thrives in discomfort). I also enjoyed Dominczyk’s domestic hurricanes of sultry, alcoholic-fueled rants whenever she is on screen (“Teenage girls are full of emotional violence and vituperation,” she vehemently spits out — an instant mass-market quote). Though she has less screen time, Dominczyk plays an important role in Jonathan’s tethering to his self-esteem, especially as she is the working author half that gets to dedicate time and space to her craft.
There might be more behind the parallels between Jonathan and Henry Miller — some that are more obvious (Dominczyk’s character shares the name of Henry’s first wife) and some that I’d love to figure out (there are a couple of direct camera shots of Vice Principal Joyce Manor’s name card, but I can’t place whether this is more obscure or a purposeful reference to the band) — but I’m interpreting it as Cairo conflating two figures together. We find that Henry Miller, where vulgarity and obscenity flows from his fingers like punctuation, and Jonathan Miller, who seems to have a blind eye or cognitive refusal of what’s happening in front of him, are really just two different people at the end.
To end on a lighter note, I carried Tropic of Cancer in high school to impress a crush (not for signaling anything other than knowing that it was on TIME’s Top 100 Novels). My favorite English teacher picked up the book and said, “Interesting!” before placing it back on my desk and moving on to the next student. So arguably, I probably wouldn’t see a movie about that.
Miller’s Girl
2024
dir. Jade Halley Bartlett
93 min.
Opens Friday, 1/26 @ AMC Boston Common
