Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.
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Plot Summary
We’re in Tennessee. Cairo is 18, but she is in high school, and her parents are wealthy. I’m talking about expensive lawyers who travel a lot, own a huge mansion, and leave their daughter to her Belle in “Beauty And the Beast” number of books.
So, through Winnie, Cairo gets her entertainment when not reading a book about longing. However, in her senior year, she meets Mr. Miller, a writer with one published poetry book with middling reviews, who has gone through the fallback of many a writer: teaching. He is married to someone who seems to be in the literary world, always working, so he gets his enjoyment daily from young minds like Cairo’s and his best friend and fellow teacher, Mr. Fillmore.
But, with Cairo reading Mr. Miller’s book, and being very complimentary to his work and stimulating to his brain, lines begin to blur. Mind you, Mr. Fillmore allows the lines to blur too with Winnie, so both are playing a dangerous game which, for Mr. Miller’s wife, Beatrice, in the beginning, she finds entertaining, hot even.
However, there comes a point where blurred lines have to become firm, and that is when Mr. Miller learns the extent of not only Cairo’s brilliance but so much more.
Content Information
- Dialog: Cursing
- Violence: Nothing notable
- Sexual Content: Sexual Situations (Implied)
- Miscellaneous: Drinking, Smoking
General Information
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Director(s) |
Jade Halley Bartlett |
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Screenplay By |
Jade Halley Bartlett |
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Based On Work By |
N/A |
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Date Released |
January 26, 2024 |
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How To Watch |
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Genre(s) |
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Film Length |
1 Hour 33 Minutes |
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Content Rating |
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Noted Characters and Cast |
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Cairo |
Jenna Ortega |
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Winnie |
Gideon Adlon |
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Mr. Miller |
Martin Freeman |
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Mr. Fillmore |
Bashir Salahuddin |
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Beatrice |
Dagmara Dominczyk |
Character Descriptions
Please Note: This character guide is not an exhaustive list of every cast member, and character descriptions may contain what can be considered spoilers.
Cairo (Jenna Ortega)
Cairo is an 18-year-old young woman who wants to go to Yale and have Tennessee and her parents just be a chapter in her past. But, one problem is that her life is unremarkable. Yes, she has a high GPA, but with no sports or extracurricular activities, what is she beyond a smart, rich girl? One who only knows love and romance through the tantalizing books she reads.
- The actor is also known for their role in “Saturday Night Live: Season 48/Episode 15 “Jenna Ortega/1975.”
Winnie (Gideon Adlon)
Winnie is Cairo’s best friend, her source of entertainment beyond books, who is a big-time flirt, smart, and seems to be a killer at marketing.
- The actor is also known for their role in “The Craft: Legacy.”
Mr. Miller (Martin Freeman)
With one book released, to middling reviews, Mr. Miller and his wife have settled in a town in Tennessee where Mr. Miller can lick his wounds, do a fallback job, and potentially be a big fish in a little pond.
- The actor is also known for their role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
Mr. Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin)
A teacher, a coach, Mr. Miller’s best friend, since Mr. Miller married his wife, Mr. Fillmore is a cool dude. However, with being single and tempted by girls like Winnie, while he may seem like a jolly, friendly, biscuit-making person like Mr. Miller, he isn’t above finding affection and admiration where he can get it.
- The actor is also known for their role in “Snatched.”
Beatrice (Dagmara Dominczyk)
Mr. Miller’s wife, who often argues with someone over the phone, is shown drinking or working, rarely leaves the house, and with how stable and sometimes boring Mr. Miller is, she finds the whole situation with Cairo perhaps the first time he has been interesting in a long time.
Review
Notable Performances or Moments
Jenna Ortega
Taking absolutely nothing away from Martin Freeman, Jenna Ortega makes this movie. Her take on the femme fatale, as this young, partly impressionable, undeniably brilliant girl who slowly falls for her teacher? Oh, it is hard not to love, especially as you see her trying to play the role of the characters she has read about, if not be the person Winnie likes to play up, even if she isn’t willing to cross the line.
However, while the flirty side she shows Mr. Miller is notable, so is when she gets dark. In fact, she delivers a read of Mr. Miller on the levels of Elektra in “Pose.” It is so cutting and devasting that when Freeman seems at a loss for words, it’s like it wasn’t acting, but he was taking the moment personally. Especially when, during the delivery, Ortega decides to lift his chin and make him focus, as her admiration, her burgeoning love, her crush, becomes disappointment, disdain, and maybe a dash of self-loathing for she felt anything for this man.
Highlights
The Games People Play
Let it be known, it isn’t just Ortega and Freeman who are playing a dangerous game; others are too. Mr. Fillmore, Winnie, and Mr. Miller’s wife, Beatrice, are also playing. Winnie finds herself a plaything for Cairo and Mr. Fillmore as she pushes Cairo to do more, tempts Mr. Fillmore, and finds herself drawn into Cairo’s retribution for Mr. Miller.
But Beatrice she is a character. Entertained by Cairo’s crush, initially, you can see her making a game out of the piece that Cairo wrote that made it clear boundaries had to be drawn. The idea that anyone desired her husband is a turn-on and perhaps the most exciting thing that has happened to him in years. Though, Beatrice isn’t above picking with Mr. Fillmore either.
In fact, I’d say Cairo and Beatrice aren’t too dissimilar. Both seem bored, filling themselves with fantasies, ideas, and distractions from their reality, looking for something or someone stimulating to help them escape the mundane routine of Tennessee. I’d even say, the ghost of Christmas future for Cairo could be Beatrice.
Recommendations
Good If You Like
- Femme Fatales
- Women behaving badly
- Stupid men
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