The putatively provocative and wannabe-controversial erotic thriller “Miller’s Girl” is a sordid little tale that isn’t nearly as clever and literary as it tries to be, nor is it as deliberately campy as 20th century entries in the genre such as “Wild Things” or even “Poison Ivy.” It’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and while there’s something initially interesting about the rather bat-bleep crazy execution of the material, the film ultimately commits a truly unforgivable cinematic offense: It turns tedious.
This is not the fault of the cast, led by the ubiquitous and quite gifted Jenna Ortega, who in the last few years has done 10 movies, not to mention her star-making turn in the Netflix series “Wednesday.” Ortega, still just 21, gives one of her signature deadpan performances as one Cairo Sweet (there’s a name for ya), a brilliant 18-year-old outcast who lives in a strangely appointed antebellum mansion in rural Tennessee and is essentially alone, as her unseen parents are wealthy and influential attorneys who are forever traveling around the world, leaving Cairo to her books and her vivid imagination.
Dressing for school as if she’s auditioning to play Britney Spears in “Baby One More Time: The Musical,” Cairo comes carrying a pile of books into the creative writing classroom of Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman), an over-the-hill scribe who hasn’t written anything in years but still fancies himself an author moonlighting as teacher. That Cairo’s personal reading material includes Jonathan’s forgotten and critically panned collection of erotic short stories (titled “Apostrophes and Ampersands,” I kid you not) feeds into Jonathan’s ego and is surely a factor in his declaration that Cairo is a budding literary genius (which she may or may not be), capable of doing great things. He’s attracted to her MIND, you see, nothing more. Cough-cough.
The only other clearly defined teacher in the school is Jonathan’s best friend, the gym teacher and baseball coach Boris (Bashir Salahuddin), who indulges in flirtatious and totally inappropriate banter (and texting) with the only other clearly defined student in the school, Cairo’s best friend Winnie (Gideon Adlon), who has very few lines of dialogue that don’t sound overwritten and artificial. (When I say, “clearly defined,” with the exception of one late-arriving character, everyone else in the school is blurred and in the background. Most of the scenes between Jonathan and Cairo take place in his otherwise-empty classroom, before or after class.)
Ah, but while Boris claims he knows where to draw the line and will not follow through on Winnie’s overtures, Jonathan allows himself to get closer and closer to Cairo, even encouraging her to write an essay in the style of Henry Miller, uh-oh. (Thus the twin meaning of that “Miller’s Girl” title.)
Still, even after Jonathan and Cairo have met up outside of school on a couple of occasions, Jonathan maintains there’s nothing wrong with any of this. Cairo is his protégé, and he is simply nurturing her potential. Sure, buddy. You’d be spending just as much time with a husky tight end on the football team if he read a bunch of books, right?
Jonathan even shares the details of the “friendship” with his alcoholic, workaholic wife, Beatrice (Dagmara Domińczyk), who lolls about the house in lingerie, speaks as if she’s in a Tennessee Williams play and tries to keep things interesting by alternately seducing and belittling her idiot milquetoast of a husband. “Teenage girls are … full of emotional violence and vituperation,” says Beatrice to her husband. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Spoiler alert: He’s too narcissistic, whiny and horny to know what he’s doing, even if it doesn’t extend to carnal knowledge.
In the final stages, “Miller’s Girl” makes some decisions about Cairo that seem to come from nowhere and are a disservice to the character, while Jonathan remains such a drip that it’s difficult to believe Beatrice would have ever fallen in love with him or Cairo would find him so alluring, even in this seemingly culturally stifling environment. When the story should be at its most compelling, we’re just looking to get on with the thing.
Writer-director Jade Haile Bartlett clearly has talent; this is a good-looking film, and there’s the occasional crackling line of dialogue. It wouldn’t surprise me if we one day look back on “Miller’s Girl” as an uneven start to what turned out to be a stellar career.
