Well, here’s another one I think I’m obligated to hate but didn’t. Miller’s Girl is a southern gothic starring a mismatched pair of actors who don’t get to slink as much as they do. I hope they had a good time filming it… would be a tragedy to waste all this horny dialog and not come out the other side like the cat that ate the canary.

The flick stars Martin Freeman as a college professor and his (18 year old) brilliant student/writer Jenna Ortega (aka Cairo… what a name to say with a southern drawl). She’s got a thing for the man who played a Hobbit and he enjoys the fantasy… but she enjoys it more.

I loved this movie’s split personality…. a film ostensibly about literature and great writing that’s also a sultry, sweaty bit of southern indecency. I’m not blind though… I’m on the fence as to whether it’s actually smart or just a low-brow pseudo-intellectual pretender. I’m undecided… but I’m siding with the film since it’s so rare to have anything even pretend to be erudite and educated.

But it’s really how this film drips sweat down its exposed back… oozes Southern decadence, largely through words, editing, and a located soundscape. It’s basically the no-touch taboo fantasy of a middle-aged man who played a Hobbit vs. a southern vixen who saunters and splendors her way up to him. Only in this film would Martin Freeman get “this” close to Jenna Ortega… much less the equally sultry (but more age appropriate) Dagmara Domińczyk who plays his wife.

I just wish they nailed a better third act. There was something about Ortega’s direction that fell off. I appreciate how it ends with an internal monolog and not the typical revenge fantasy… but I’m also base enough to have wished for something more torrid. It felt unsatisfying while also being an admirable attempt at more than its genre would normally allow.

So… I liked it. I’m probably on a different kind of watchlist now. Oops! Sometimes you have to wallow in the subversion and half-admire, half-doubt the pseudo-intellectual pretense. At least they tried.

Score: 84