City girl life facebook3/20/2024 ![]() ![]() And she kept some of the props as souvenirs. She said her house came out better than it did before the shoot. “It was wild to wake up and go to work downstairs,” she said. She said she was charmed by her home’s 164-year-old oak floors, original windows “and a ghost that walks up the stairs sometimes.”ĭuring the 19-day production shoot, she slept upstairs while allowing 60 people to tromp around her place during the day. With a modest budget of $4 million, Bartlett saved money by shooting the interior of Cairo’s house in her own home, which she purchased in 2020 in the historic district of Cartersville. I’m not trying to prescribe how someone feels about it.” But I just ask a lot of questions rather than decree one thing or another. “This is not ‘Poison Ivy.’ This is not ‘The Crush.’ I love those movies. I consider this a romantic horror.”īartlett leaves the ending ambiguous for a reason. But the reality is they are not perfect villains or perfect victims. “They’re all morally and ethically gray, which is closer to life,” Bartlett said. She is more disappointed in him than upset.”Īnd Jonathan’s best friend, a fellow teacher, also toys with the power dynamics with his students, including Cairo’s best friend. “Women in films like this are often accessories to their husband,” she said. Jonathan’s wife Beatrice, for instance, has the busier, better-paying job. The secondary characters are equally colorful. “He cannot accept the responsibility of the power he has in this dynamic. “Jonathan feels so powerless in his life,” Bartlett said. Despite his obvious internal desires, he rejects Cairo. He gives her a special assignment to write an essay in the style of her favorite author.Ĭairo chooses Henry Miller, who is known for sexually explicit short stories, and his alarm goes off when her story borders on pornographic. They linger after class to talk literature. ![]() He invites her to a poetry reading to show her that Tennessee isn’t a complete backwater. He convinces himself that he is simply helping a super bright student get into college. Miller becomes quietly flattered by Cairo’s attention. The result: he avoided putting pen to paper ever again. In the movie, Miller, played by Emmy-winning 52-year-old British actor Martin Freeman, is in a bit of a rut, a middle-aged teacher who had authored a book years earlier that got panned. She brought a lot of humanity to a character that is complicated to play.” She understood Cairo in a way that I didn’t have to explain to her. “She said things to me about the character I had never vocalized. “Jenna totally disarmed me,” said Bartlett in a Zoom call last week from her Cartersville home. “Miller’s Girl” was shot in Cartersville in late summer and early fall of 2022. The drama is now in theaters.īartlett was fortunate to nab Ortega before the release of Ortega’s breakthrough hit “Wednesday” on Netflix. The result: a murky morality fable dubbed “Miller’s Girl,” led by Emmy-nominated rising star Jenna Ortega as the alluringly intellectually mature yet emotionally immature Cairo. Then the #MeToo movement came along and she rejiggered the film to make 18-year-old Cairo less the villain and amplify Jonathan’s complicity in the relationship. She eventually converted it to a screenplay for a potential movie. It was about student Cairo who seduces English teacher Jonathan Miller set in a high school in rural Tennessee. ATLANTA - Cartersville resident Jade Halley Bartlett wrote a Southern Gothic stage play more than a decade ago while she was a struggling actress in New York City. ![]()
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