Miller's Girl (2024)
Ugh. Is January over yet? No? Drat. I have nothing against the month itself, but as all us cinema fans know, it’s traditionally and notoriously the worst month for movies.
Yeah, I went to see Miller’s Girl. It’s pretentious, disgusting crap.
Cairo Sweet lives alone in a mansion while her lawyer parents spend all their time traveling. Meanwhile, she’s never been outside her small town and has her sights set on Yale. She’s an extremely talented writer so she might be a shoo-in, but she’s having trouble with the essay portion of her application. Cairo’s friend, Winnie, suggests that Cairo have an “experience.” That’ll set her apart.
Teacher and writer Jonathan Miller has noticed Cairo’s talent, and in an act of apparent favoritism gives her the midterm assignment early: Write a short story in the style of your favorite author. Cairo’s favorite author is Henry Miller, and in her short story she doesn’t just imitate Miller’s prose style but his subject matter. Isn’t that lovely?
Cairo and Jonathan’s mentor-student relationship starts out relatively innocently, with them talking after class or just in passing, but the attraction is there. Whether Cairo sets out specifically to seduce Jonathan or the subject matter gets to them isn’t made clear, but when Jonathan picks up Cairo’s cellphone by mistake and then drops by her house to give it back, Cairo sashays out in a backless satin dress and they kiss, so it appears she planned the whole thing. Cairo’s eighteen, by the way, and Jonathan’s married.
How far does it all go? Put it this way: No one comes out a winner, although some fare better than others, if ruining the life of another person out of spite could be considered faring better.
Miller’s Girl tries so, so hard. Even though it might seem brainy, with its voiceover narration of Cairo’s stories and the big words Cairo throws around, the plot has absolutely no logic. Granted, the human race can be the furthest thing from logical, but as someone with an English degree who took AP classes in high school, I call malarkey on the way Jonathan handled his relationship with Cairo and the way he taught the class.
First of all, if Cairo’s that special, why would she be given extra time on the midterm? Why would a teacher assign a midterm like that in the first place if Cairo’s the only one who can really handle it? What’s more, the average short story can’t be done in an essay exam, even using what my teachers used to call the “boilermaker method.” It’s just not possible. No one, not even John Steinbeck, can write a story that quickly.
Secondly, the minute Cairo started getting pushy, Jonathan should have immediately reported her and then had her removed from the class. That’s generally what the procedure is in these kinds of cases. There would have been sit-downs with Cairo and her parents, and probably a call to Child Protective Services when the school found out Cairo lived alone.
Instead, Jonathan allows Cairo to invade his space, gives in to her demands, and indulges in inappropriate thoughts and behaviors. The consequences were the one bit the movie gets right. When a situation like that goes on unchecked for too long, whoever has the most authority is automatically suspect.
Speaking of inappropriate thoughts, pretty much everyone in this movie is constantly horny and it’s gross. Jonathan’s wife, Beatrice, wears negligees for about ninety percent of the film and talks in an exaggerated Southern accent like Isabel on the “Nose Job” episode of Seinfeld. She seemingly works from home, but what she does is a mystery, as she’s always knocking back scotch and smoking cigarettes.
Meanwhile, Cairo and her friend Winnie, the latter of whom is bisexual, both ooze sexuality. Winnie in particular drapes herself all over Jonathan’s desk and fantasizes about seducing Jonathan’s friend, physics teacher Boris, the only sorta adult in the movie. I say “sorta” because even though Boris makes the mistake of giving Winnie his personal cellphone number, he has the good sense to delete any explicit photos she sends him. The obvious question is, why are these girls both going after teachers? Are there not boys their age at their school? Apparently not.
I really wish I could think of something good to say about Miller’s Girl, but I can’t. It’s mean-spirited, depressing, haphazard, smutty, badly written, and hypocritical. When Cairo sneers at Jonathan, “You’re not brave enough to be better,” and Beatrice tells Jonathan he’s a mediocre writer no one cares about, it’s as if the movie is telling on itself. It’s too cowardly to be a decent film and seems to want to make everyone who sees it miserable. Inevitably, it’s doomed to fail.
Miller’s Girl is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: F
Principal Cast: Martin Freeman, Jenna Ortega, Bashir Salahuddin, Gideon Adlon, Dagmara Dominczyk, Christine Adams, Ray Fawley, Trace Haynes, Andre Wilkerson
Written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett.