A creative writing assignment yields complex results between a teacher and his talented student.
Miller's Girl is directed by Jade Hailey Bartlett which is her directorial debut.
The concept of Miller's Girl is not new, it's another Fatal Attraction (1987) type of movie a sub genre that is quite popular The Crush (1993), Swimfan (2002), The Roommate (2011), Poison Ivy (1992) and many others are example of this type story being told several times before. Some of which end up being cult classics like The Crush (1993) while others get forgotten about.
Miller's Girl is actually quite better than some of the movies I just named but that's not exactly saying much considering a lot of movies in this genre tend to be quite awful. But I have to say Miller's Girl actually does have a decent amount going for it.
Jenna Ortega once again shows she's one of the best actresses currently working today and I really have to give credit where credit is due. She took a script that so many other actors or actresses would have a very hard time making it work but she puts her own style and power into it which really benefits her performance. There's one particular moment in the movie where this really shows, if the rest of the movie had moments like that I think this would have been far better. Her character Cairo Sweet while not getting the most character development manages to actually be quite interesting, it really makes you wish the movie spent a bit more time exploring her. But I do think for the most part Jenna's acting really tells what you need to know about Cairo.
Dagmara Dominczyk gives a pretty hilarious performance, she's quite enjoyable and really makes each scene she's in more interesting. Martin Freeman is pretty okay here, this is definitely nowhere near one of his best performances but it's serviceable and gets the job done. The filming is actually not bad here and filming actually compliments the atmosphere that the movie does have pretty well, finally there's a handful of moments here that are quite enjoyable there's some dialogue that is so bad it's kind of hilarious.
When you really get down to it the main problem here is the writing, the movie is not exactly sure what it's trying to say. It has the material to talk about something important the movie has this whole thing where the movie actually makes you guess whether something happened between Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman) and Cairo Sweet, was it a kiss? was it sex? The movie does not really tell you which I actually think was a very refreshing move with these types of movies. It's just a shame that happens within the last 15-20 minutes where the movie is pretty much over at that point.
The rest of the movie is either filled with some not really funny comedic relief, a lot of drawn out scenes that could have easily been cut down and some very questionable editing that was a bit baffling to see. The movie also plays a bit too safe, despite having controversial themes the movie makes the decision of not really doing anything with it's premise, sure we get one or two glimpses but that's really about it.
Overall I think Miller's Girl is not a terrible movie, there's a lot here that could have made for something truly great. Especially if the rest of the movie was like the last 15-20 minutes I mentioned earlier. I think the movie is fine enough seeing just for the performances some people may get something out of this.
Miller's Girl is available in theaters.
5/10 C
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