Miller's Girl

I do enjoy when a movie's dialog provides its own review. This film was " overreaching without ambition." The pacing of the movie was horribly painful. It is never a good sign when I leave the action of the movie and find myself looking around thinking " I am sitting in a movie theater. " Martin Freeman is a terrific actor but the script absolutely failed him. His talents were so totally wasted. I found this to be hopelessly sad as I expected so much from the film.

The movie harps on the mediocrity of the protagonist and then tries to paint him as a villain. It just did not ring true. The script just kept missing; and, it was hard to keep pressing forward. With 45 minutes, or so, to go; I just wanted it to be over.

A creative writing assignment yields complex results between a teacher and his talented student.

I note many poor reviews and I'm unsure why that is. The acting is great from every single member of the cast.

The dialogue is meaningful and well thought out.

The plot echoes what is happening around the world right now with thousands of teachers and students: some will get caught and some won't. But it's real and so it's great to see the inner workings of the process, by such great acting and story telling.

There's even a bit in there about how women in fact have all the power in the world, they just don't realise it.

There's an insightful comment too about how "We know where the line is and don't cross it." Except some do, and when they have it's too late to walk it back.

I was surprised at Ortega's depth of character acting, but in hindsight perhaps not a great distance from her Wednesday character.

But there's an interplay between her and Winnie, as power and courage shift between one and the other as the story goes on.

Great film, I liked it a lot.

Miller's Girl presents a perspective of a romantic affair between a student (Jenna Ortega as Cairo Sweet) and its teacher (Martin Freeman as Jonathan Miller). It is a very ambitious and intriguing idea to explore, I really liked the plot and how it slowly unfolded, how the characters evolved and how eventually Cairo and Martin turned out to be complex characters that carried a lot of personal and professional baggage yet they connected and felt heard and understood thanks to their mutual interest in literature and writing. Now, obviously there's a lot more that's going on, more nuances, subtlety and delicacy and not to even mention the other "situationship" presented but it makes you wonder on another level... does love have limits? Is there such a thing as a forbidden love? Does even right or wrong exist when love is involved? Or, at the same time... is it really about love or is it something else?

Both Freeman and Ortega deliver good performances and it serve their characters well, but it sometimes felt during the first acts like they lacked that chemistry, that connection that was supposed to urge their attraction, desire, tension; that "I want it so bad that nothing else matters"; their interaction with other characters involved seemed more natural than when they were together.

Jade Halley Bartlett creates this motion picture with a sort of aristocratic dark fantasy visual language and score in mind which plays an important part in the production itself especially in certain scenes implying the ideas of mystery, of desire, even of the forbidden and the unacceptable - yet, it felt a bit all over the place and unnecessary at times because it created a few clichés such as the mysterious girl that comes out of a misty forest thingy and it just pulls you out of the story.

Throughout the film it seems to be an incomplete puzzle yet in such a good way because you get most of the pieces, but you also have to create the missing ones by yourself. The ending is arguably the most impactful and well made on this matter because even though an open ending is not reinventing the wheel, this time the final scene can actually be interpreted in such many ways, all of them viable and credible since, as earlier mentioned, the film was packed with many nuances and tones, hints and implies of what actually might have happened.

The film is pretty good when reflected a bit upon it.

First off hands off to the entire cast. They are quite good in this film and the script especially when the main characters quotes dialogue is really well written. I was expecting something rather poor from the 5.2 review on imdb but I honestly think most people who watched this didn't get the point the director was making.

Jenna Ortega plays a fairly unbelievable character let's get that out there not only is she a siren but she has a plan and is incredibly clever, well if you know anything about 18 year olds this is quite far fetched. Martin Freeman is the naive muse in an Luke warm marriage flattered by the attraction and attention of a young good looking fan and it spirals in a rather prectible way but what makes this better than most fatal attraction movies is his conduct I don't want to mention spoilers in my reviews but he got burned for a thought.

I had high hopes. From the trailer it looked interesting and aesthetically pleasing but I was very wrong. Unfortunately by the end of the movie I was left feeling frustrated because, the main thing about this movie - the tension, it was non existent.

There was no chemistry between the main protagonists. Zero. And Martin's heavy breathing in Jenna's face was very uncomfortable to watch...

Jenna on the other hand... Oh God, where do I even start?? She was so stiff the whole time it was seriously hard to watch. I don't know when this movie was filmed, but she seems stuck in her "Wednesday" role. Yes, her character is supposed to be strong, opinionated, witty, charming, seductive... But she fails to deliver any of it! She doesn't seem like clever teenage girl suddenly shaken and intrigued by an unexpected new variable in her life, at times she kinda looks bored. Her narrating was good though. But like I mentioned, the main point of the movie, the taboo of the desire and magnetism between main characters, is absolutely lacking. It's almost cringe and uncomfortable watching their scenes of "passion and attraction"...

To sum it up - good idea, poorly executed. Shame.