REVIEW: ‘Miller’s Girl’ is a trashy thriller that goes off the rails

Lester from the “Fargo” series meets Wednesday Addams. Hijinx ensue.

To go a bit more in depth, “Miller’s Girl” is a film set in a small Tennessee community that follows a literature teacher. Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman), who’s also an author, though he hasn’t written in a few years, is just getting started on a new semester.

One of the first students he meets is Cairo (Jenna Ortega), a high schooler who lives alone as her wealthy parents are abroad. Cairo shows promise and it leads Miller to assign her a special writing project to help her with college admissions. The two end up growing closer, but the situation begins to take a dark turn.

“Miller’s Girl” is a profound, powerful and twisted drama full of intrigue… Is what could be written if this was a review of a story you might see on Fanfiction.net. That may be a bit harsh, but this is an absurd soap opera of a movie. While it enters provocative and edgy territory, it lacks wit and doesn’t have much to say.

It’s a shame because it wastes a fantastic actor in Martin Freeman and one of the industry’s major up-and-comers in Jenna Ortega. Unfortunately both wonderful performers are let down, though, by the Jade Halley Bartlett, who wrote and directed the feature.

The movie takes itself so damn seriously, yet the dialogue often comes across like it’s trying too hard to be suggestive and push boundaries, so it ends up feeling unintentionally campy. This extends to the setting, too, which has a Gothic, dreary appearance. It’s so over-stylized that it adds to the unconvincing nature of the movie.

What’s more unfortunate is there is the framework for something good here. As mentioned, there are two great lead performers at the film’s center, and a possible affair between the two main characters could result in a disturbing, tense drama. But it would require much more nuance, finesse and realism than this movie has.

The picture is also rarely subtle, and that’s not just in regard to the main situation at hand. Cairo has an eccentric best friend in the movie, but that’s not just shown through her on screen personality, in her first appearance she’s also wearing a shirt that says “weird” on it.

Then during scenes where Jonathan is at home, his wife is often busy with work. But the film doesn’t show her just caught up in her job, it also has the dining room table flooded with papers and boxes to drive the point home. It’s stuff like this that make the movie amateurish, as if it doesn’t trust its audience.

The movie is certainly aided by its two lead performers, with Ortega and Freeman trying like hell to make things work. The supporting characters are played to an almost cartoonish degree, though, especially Dagmara Domińczyk who plays Miller’s wife.

Adding to the list of issues is the Tennessee setting of “Miller’s Girl.” This isn’t based on a novel so it’s not like it has to be truthful to the source material. The reason this ends up being an issue is because a lot of the characters slip in and out of southern drawls, which is distracting.

In the end, problems like this and others lead to “Miller’s Girl” being a dud instead of an engrossing dark drama. It has some talent in the cast and a few intense moments, but more times than not, what’s unfolding is laughable. 2 out of 5.