Miller's Girl review: Jenna Ortega is spell-binding in engrossing Southern Gothic thriller

Early in Miller's Girl, Beatrice (Dagmara Domincyzk) infers that Jonathan's (Martin Freeman) new student's talent may be the more dangerous allure for him than her looks. That statement may be true for Miller's Girl itself, as the talent on display from both star Jenna Ortega and first-time writer/director Jade Halley Bartlett is absolutely spell-binding.

Ortega, who has seen her star power rise quickly over the last few years with X, Scream, Scream VI and Wednesday, is stunning as Cairo Sweet, affirming in this reviewer's opinion that she is one of the best young stars working today. Bartlett, meanwhile, creates a riveting and complex character dynamic with rich visuals and heightened language that invoke a Southern Gothic style not seen on screen (at least this effectively) in a while. 

While the movie's subject matter and style may deter some, Miller's Girl has the ability to draw you into its web and becomes something you can't look away from.

Miller's Girl focuses on the relationship between Freeman's Jonathan, a failed writer who now teaches high school English in a small Tennessee town, and Ortega's Cairo, a sophisticated and talented student. Jonathan becomes enthusiastic about Cairo's potential and encourages her work, giving her plenty of attention and treating her more as an equal than a student. However, when Cairo writes an inappropriate short story about a teacher and student relationship, it hits too close to home for Jonathan and their relationship turns.

What makes Miller's Girl so fascinating is the dynamic it creates between Ortega's Cairo and Freeman's Jonathan and the line it skirts with depicting a teacher-student relationship.

Jonathan is excited to have a student with potential and Cairo seems quite mature for her age, so he encourages her and treats her more as an equal. However, he refuses to see the signs of how his actions are influencing Cairo and fails to remember that she is a high school student and he is her teacher until things begin to get out of hand.

When Jonathan realizes (too late in all honesty) that he has crossed the line and feels threatened by a story Cairo wrote, the dynamic shifts. Cairo realizes she has the power in the situation and decides to use it to her advantage.

It's at this point that Ortega turns Cairo into a budding femme fatale, learning to play the game and enjoying it. There is a magnetism to the young actress that makes her incredibly fun to watch on screen. The Southern drawl she employs for Cairo can be jarring at first, but her conviction in the role soon makes that fade away and she draws you in with her story of a young teen gaining confidence and agency to a dangerous level.

Freeman, meanwhile, has the fun job of using his nice-guy persona that roles like John Watson, Bilbo Baggins and others audiences have become accustomed to and twisting it in the movie. At first he seems the excited teacher eager to have a student with vast potential, but there is a lerry underlining to his actions that can't be ignored. But most importantly, the chemistry between Freeman and Ortega is crackling.

The movie's central relationship is of course incredibly difficult to navigate for anyone, let alone a first time filmmaker. But writer/director Jade Halley Bartlett's choice to use a heighten style serves the movie well, as it allows the characters' actions to fit in the world of the story.

While Bartlett has seemingly come out of nowhere with Miller's Girl, her feature directing debut and her only writing credit currently listed on IMDb, it has been a long road to the movie's release. 

Bartlett first wrote the story as a play before turning it into a script that appeared on the Blacklist (Hollywood's annual list of best unproduced screenplays) in 2016. It has taken nearly eight years to bring to the screen, but it was worth the wait. Bartlett crafts a strong debut feature as a director that takes a risk with its style. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but she commits to it and in our view the movie is all the better for it. Here's hoping whatever is next for her arrives sooner than the time it took for Miller's Girl to premiere.

Miller's Girl is an early gem in the 2024 new movie slate; a psychological thriller that features a great leading pair in Ortega and Freeman and a promising debut from a new director that we should be on the lookout for moving forward.

Miller's Girl releases exclusively in US movie theaters on January 26.