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‘Miller’s Girl’ Review: A Small-Town Teen Learns That Adult Ambition Comes at a Steep Price
Writer-director Jade Halley Bartlett makes a promising debut with a literate but predictable thriller, elevated by Martin Freeman and Jenna Ortega.
“Miller’s Girl,” about a relationship that develops between a wise-beyond-her-years teenager and her intellectually undernourished teacher, feels like catnip for the circular discourse of Film Twitter, but it’s hard to tell where a study of post-#MeToo power dynamics will land with moviegoers in the real world. Encouraged by the flirtations he witnesses between Winnie and his fellow teacher, Boris Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin, “Top Gun: Maverick”), Jonathan lets himself be seduced by Cairo’s prodigious literacy (including a complimentary familiarity with his own book), not to mention her receptiveness to his attention. That said, so much potential lingers from the fallout of an imploded student-teacher affair — however consummated — converging with her naive romantic notions and the absence of guidance from parents or authority figures, especially in a conservative Southern town that may not place blame on him to protect a minor from exploitation as readily as it should.
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