Miller's Girl (2024)

Watched it again and liked it so much. It's an acting masterclass by Jenna Ortega. That dialog between Cairo and Jonathan, you'll know which one, is so powerful.

**MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW**

Here's my take on Cairo: she's an 18 year old girl who by her own words seems uninterested in sex, or at least not to know yet whether she wants it. The film sets her up as asexual. The extremely steamy story she writes has sex only as a literary device. The steamy scene she has with her lesbian friend is only to distract her and she stops as the photo is taken and sent, beyond the photo she had no interest in it.

In films like this, 'the girl' is often portrayed as driven by her hormones. Even in this film it is said that 'teenage girls are dangerous'. But not Cairo, she is purely intellectual.

She's an extremely gifted writer, much more than her teacher, but initially she thinks she has finally found someone who is her equal, a way out of her intellectual loneliness. But when he fails to live up to her drive to move boundaries, she considers him mediocre, not even worthy to be treated as a person and she consciously destroys his life.

She's not a nice person. She treats both Jonathan and Winnie as subhuman.

Here's my take on Jonathan: I think he is indeed mediocre as both Cairo and his own wife say. He stopped writing when he got some bad reviews and he shies away from the literary gauntlet Cairo throws down. He's a coward who thought he was more.

I think he actually is sexually interested in this beautiful young woman who flatters him and who he can admire, like normally in 'these kind of films'. He is not the standard victim however, since it is shown that he and his colleague already blur lines, watch nude pictures of students, etc. With Cairo he had the opportunity to draw lines and should have (their classroom talk already went too far, but visiting the poetry reading together was well wrong, not to speak of the kissing, visiting her house when he knew she was alone, etc.). Also, he should have left his wife ages ago since she clearly looks down on him, but that is yet another thing he doesn't dare to do.

Here's my take on whether they did or didn't do it: the film is nicely ambiguous about that. The sex scene we see is part of the story Cairo wrote, not necessarily true. He denies anything happened, but we saw them kiss, so that is a lie already. She denied to her friend that they slept together, so probably they didn't. 'Write what you know' is said, suggesting they did. But Cairo refers to it as 'this fantasy' instead of 'this thing we did', so maybe they didn't.

I think they truly bonded after the poetry night, where they both fell in love with each other. Maybe more happened, maybe it happened the next time they were together at her house. But I'm guessing, with 51%/49% odds, that it didn't go beyond the kiss.
#MillersGirl #JennaOrtega

I always make up my own mind first about a film, sometimes write it down, only then check reviews on letterboxd. Anyway, I stand by my words:

Seeing Jenna Ortega on the big screen is such an experience... Her acting talent and the intricate script make for an exhilarating watch and that I will have to rewatch it multiple times when it hopefully comes out on blu-ray or 4k to untangle the different strands.

The story of a young girl and an old man is a bit of a trope. I love the film "Noce Blanche" (also a brilliant student and a teacher, though there she's 15, here 18) and both there and here the story is treated better, more real, with a different slant on it. Where in "Noce Blanche" it initially starts off showing her as the predator (the classic take), then questions that, here we dive deep into their psyches and the why while at the same time not knowing what really happened (the problem with "Noce Blanche" is that we see way too much of what happens, not here). The shot of the empty chair was in both films, maybe not coincidentally.

The chemistry between the two main actors is amazing. Not only in the traditional sense, but also how the tension between the characters changes throughout the film and the two actors are completely in sync with each about it. So much is also hinted at that may have happened between the characters that we didn't see, I mean that both of them show up wearing sunglasses next morning after sharing a moment at a poetry night suggests the night lasted longer than we knew...

Also a couple of long emotional scenes without cuts, just focusing on the actors, I like that.

#JennaOrtega #MillersGirl