A movie with Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman surely sounds great considering the cultural phenomenon both have been part of. However, it seems that their movie Miller’s Girl has sparked a huge controversy to the point that fans have deemed it “gross” or “disturbing” on social media.
Miller’s Girl, released a couple of weeks ago, has now become viral thanks to a very particularly heated NSFW scene between both actors, and you can already imagine why the controversy. The clip, which is now hard to find on social media due to its content, made people question relationships of power and even age gaps between couples. Why now?
What is Miller’s Girl About?
First things first, what is Miller’s Girl about? As you can get from the little context we’ve shared, this is the story of the relationship between a young student and her professor. The movie, sold as an erotic thriller tells the story of Cairo Sweet, a very ambitious but brilliant 18-year-old student, and Jonathan Miller, a university professor.
Miller soon becomes Sweet’s tutor and mentor, but beyond the intense study sessions, their student-professor relationship soon escalates to a forbidden and controversial liaison. As the official synopsis claims, their frowned-upon relationship will “confront their darkest selves.” Already enough to make it controversial right?
Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman’s Controversy
With a very disturbing Lolita trope, the movie warns its viewers that this is a dark, even uncomfortable, erotic thriller so that they know what to expect. But perhaps, people didn’t really take this into account since it was that particular clip we’ve mentioned the one that made it all pollemic and viral.
Yes, the clip in question is an intimate scene in which we can see Cairo and Jonathan about to engage in intercourse. Besides the actual scene, what caused more shock was to realize the age gap between the characters (and the actors). Freeman is 52 years old, while Ortega is barely 21; yes, this is an age gap of 31 years!
But why did this particular scene make people uncomfortable but not seeing real couples like, let’s say, Leonardo Dicaprio and any of his past girlfriends? Not that one is more objectionable than the other, but both cases are terrible. But what is it that makes us more uncomfortable than the other?
The very first answer is the level of intimacy we’re seeing here. However, it might go beyond that, and that is the fact that the movie is just one of many stories with the teacher-student trope without deeply questioning how misogynistic this is. The movie doesn’t confront the matter, simply plays along with this outdated trope, leaving us with a very uncomfortable, and yes, grossed out feeling.
On the matter, Jade Halley, the movie’s director and writer, revealed that she was already expecting the backlash of the movie. “I’d rather people be talking about it than people thinking it’s boring. As a writer, boring is death.” But is making a “not boring” movie enough?
“The perfect victim is boring. It’s boring to write. It’s boring to be. I think it is dangerous to keep writing women as the perfect victim because it doesn’t allow us any agency,” she added. Yes, Cairo has agency, we’re not going to deny that, but to what extent? Seducing her professor? What lies beyond that? At the end of the day, it’s a very simplistic film with no real depth or analysis of a very dangerous and, sadly, a common example of power relationships.
No, we don’t need to see more of these stories and scenes if they’re not going to make us question our realities. Not to be a prude, but we don’t need intimate scenes just for the shocking element, and definitely having a very young actress engage in such scenes with a very mature adult, isn’t really something we should be applauding here.
