I have been absolutely fascinated with Letterboxd's reaction to this film. Talk about polarizing! I still look through the comments/reviews on this film. It is beyond hated. The story about an 18 year old student in a Tennessee high school (that seems to have such a small student body for some reason; it looks like it was shot during the pandemic or something), with a very flirty lesbian friend who admittedly has fun teasing a football coach. Ortega's Cairo Sweet has absent parents off on another trip, leaving her behind to wallow in melancholy and narrate her woe to us about how to jazz up her profile for a school out of state.
A lot of the dialogue uses literary words and the characters talk as if they speak in a language completely of some world we are not part of...or most of us. I assume, there are pockets of intellectuals impressing each other with how smart they are. This feels like that. Beatrice, an English teacher's wife who is a current author, is really busy and has to deal throughout the day with her publisher while Miller has "fallen into teaching" since his career as a writer "hit a snag". But Cairo has read his book, quotes it to him, and also decides to write her own story for a good credit in class. The story has to do with her teacher and he feels very uncomfortable with her being so distinct that it could reveal something between them harmful.
There are scenes of the two meeting and sort of talking around what they feel. I found most their time together awkward, with this almost unsettling discomfort. It's like we know they have no business being even remotely interested in each other. They seem drawn to each other just because the movie demands it. It's not natural or organic. It's not believable. He wrote a book. She read the book. She wants to write about feelings and intense emotions. She wants to literarily promote this relationship in her mind in a story. It hits too close, so close he masturbates to it while his wife continues to plug away at her book in the house. He feels neglected, remaining unfulfilled in his marriage, not communicating even his prolonged melancholy in regards to his current career and removal from creating art in novelization. Nothing indicates his potential dalliance with Cairo would be anything more than fleeting, something that comes and goes. But rejecting Cairo's work brings him a lot more grief than anticipated.
Soon friendship and relationships are frayed or strained, the job he fell into teaching is threatened, and Miller finds himself with a probable story now to write. And Cairo perhaps found something interesting to carry with her to college.
I personally didn't find this erotic or intense. Was that the intention? Lives changed because of a story. Create melodrama, manufacture it, cause what could have been temporary problematic behavior to balloon out of control. Was this an ill-advised attempt to toy with a Fatal Attraction formula? I formulated a plot while watching this where Cairo's attraction and interest is towards Beatrice, the actual writer, and how Miller, a failed writer, could react. How does Beatrice handle a student of her lover's intense interest in her? What would Cairo do, how far would she go, to get the kind of story that created an impression. What would Miller do as a result? I think that is a missed opportunity actually. That could really produce some fireworks.
Beatrice is certainly a character I would have been more interested in as this foul-mouthed, opinionated, very raunch even at times. Now I did think Beatrice and Miller had great chemistry, but cracks are there. When one seems to be going places, the other having hit a wall, injecting this alluring young woman into the mix seems like a recipe for disaster. Well, disaster happens.
The age gap conversation is more intense from those who hate this than any hopeful erotic expectations. The eww and ick reactions are plentiful. I wonder if that would have been the case if Cairo and Beatrice had those attraction scenes.
I will say that the film tells us Ortega is going to be a sex symbol if she wants to be. There are evocative slow motion camera and editing choices, specific wardrobe choices, and just the dreamlike presentation of Ortega that speak volumes about how she could be a sensation beyond where she is already.
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