Author Sharai Bohannon reviewed “Miller’s Girl” for Dread Central, rating it 2 stars out of a possible 5. While she qualified her assessment with support for first-time director Jade Halley Bartlett, whom she thinks deserves another chance in Hollywood, she too found the film wholly ineffective. “There are some cool ideas in the premise of this film that never really go anywhere. It is difficult to agree or disagree with the movie’s message because it never really commits to a side,” she wrote.
For The Associated Press, Mark Kennedy characterized the film as uninteresting despite its attention-grabbing story. “This movie might be less fun than taking the SATs,” he wrote.
In his negative review published by The Seattle Times, author Chase Hutchinson felt that the film leans too hard on the fact its age gap relationship will provoke strong reactions, stopping short of contributing to the discussion it’s meant to open. “For all the ways the film flirts with its thorny topic, proving to be controversial in only a superficial sense, the story is one not even the most inexperienced writer would praise,” he wrote.
So, while “Miller’s Girl” may know that its core character dynamic is inappropriate, the consensus among critics seems to be that this self-awareness stops short of meaningful engagement with its challenging subject matter.
