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| Cairo, Mr. Miller and Coach Filmore |
In the film, which was written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett and was streaming on Netflix, Mr. Miller’s creative writing assignment was for Cairo to write a short story in the style of Henry Miller - Cairo’s favorite author. Interestingly, about six minutes into the film, Coach Boris Fillmore, the physics teacher and baseball coach, read from Book 1 of Henry Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris.
Mr. Boris Fillmore, “[13-year-old] Marcelle wants me to fuck her [...] Marcelle stretches her tiny split fig.”
God willing, a full review of Under the Roofs of Paris is forthcoming, but, for now, here’s the first paragraph:
God knows I’ve lived in Paris long enough now that I shouldn’t be amazed at anything. You don’t have to go deliberately looking for adventures here, the way you do back in New York … all that’s necessary is to have a little patience and wait, life will seek you out in the most unbelievable obscure places, things happen to you here. But the situation in which I now find myself … this pretty thirteen-year-old naked on my lap, her father busy taking down his pants behind a screen in the corner, the buxom young whore sitting on the couch…it’s as though life were viewed through distorting glass, recognizable images are seen but discredited.
As for Miller's Girl, the film opened with Cairo (Jenna Ortega), who was described as a “generational wealthy girl” with a 4.40 GPA, relating that when she turned 18 (i.e., an adult), she didn’t “suddenly transform”.
“What is an adult? Becoming one didn’t suddenly transform me into anything outstanding or significant. I am 18 and entirely unremarkable.”
Moments later, in reference to Mr. Miller, Cairo shared, “Today I met a writer - like me. A teacher.
And speaking of student-teacher relationships, Winnie Black, Cairo’s classmate, shared with Cairo, “I think I’m seducing Coach Fillmore.” Thus, in response to Cairo’s Yale essay prompt, “What has been your greatest achievement to date?”, Winnie encouraged Cairo to write a “treatise on teacher-student affairs.”
Winnie, “Experience something.”
Cairo, “Like what?
Winnie, “Something worth writing about. You could write a treatise on teacher-student affairs [...] about achieving emancipation from your inherited beliefs about sex and age.”
Due to Winnie condoning teacher-student affairs, Cairo asked Winnie if Winnie was “seriously gonna fuck [Coach] Fillmore”. In other words, Cairo wanted to know if Winnie was planning to lose her virginity to Coach Fillmore. Winnie was undecided, but she did confess that Coach Fillmore’s age was not a deterrent.
“You’re not seriously gonna fuck Fillmore, are you?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Like, he’s, like, twenty years older than you.”
“So? Older men have been harvesting virginity since the dawn of time.”
“So, it doesn’t mean anything to you?
“What?”
“Your virginity.”
“Does it mean something to you?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Winnie went on to add that, compared to teen boys, Coach Fillmore was like a “dry-aged slab of perfectly marbled hot man” whom she wanted to take her to “pleasure town”
Winnie, “We’re, like, the fucking American wet dream. Young girls with ambivalent sexuality. Pheromones streaming off our bodies. I don’t wanna drop for some rando jock-twat whose sexual standards are mandated by the shit porn he downloads. That’s deli meat. I want a dry-aged slab of perfectly marbled hot man meat to take me to pleasure town. Like. Wagyu beef. Hungee.”
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| Winnie Attempts to Seduce Coach Fillmore |
Winnie described Coach Fillmore as handsome, intelligent, and, seemingly, good at foreplay and afterplay.
Cairo, “You think that’s Boris Fillmore?”
Winnie, “Why not? He’s fine. He’s, like, really fucking smart. And he’s kind. Which means, as my first time, he’d take his time to get me all good and juiced. And then he’d give me aftercare. You know the first time you have sex, it’s not supposed to hurt. Right? Like, if you’re properly aroused. You likely won’t bleed.”
Winnie had eyes for Coach Fillmore, but, per Winnie, Mr. Miller had eyes for Cairo.
Winnie, “My point is that Boris has just got it going on. I know what I’m looking for. And I think Mr. Miller knows what he’s looking for.”
Cairo, “What do you mean?”
Winnie, “I’ve never seen him look at a student the way he looks at you. He sees you even though you hide in plain sight. Come on. Like you don’t notice, Cairo. It’s like he’s been living in grayscale and you’re the first thing he’s ever seen in color. I’d fuck you.”
Cairo, “I know.”
With the idea of having a teacher-student affair to provide material for her Yale essay, Cairo took an interest in Mr. Miller and, unsurprisingly, Mr. Miller, despite being married, took an interest in Cairo as well.
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| Mr. Miller and Cairo at the Scroll Sessions at Sally Bunny’s |
Mr. Miller memorized Cairo’s short story, which he recited to her - in his office. Mr. Miller flattered Cairo, “You’re exceptionally talented.” And he invited her to the “Scroll Sessions at Sally Bunny’s” - a poetry salon at Victorian Village where Cairo shared a cigarette with her English teacher.
Back at school, Cairo bought and brought Mr. Miller and Coach Fillmore coffees. Consequently, Mr. Miller said, “You’re sweet.” Cairo replied, “When it suits.” And after Coach Fillmore left, Mr. Miller and Cairo shared (another) cigarette over coffee. Ergo, Winnie said to Cairo, “You’re seducing him - you floozy.”
And speaking of seducing teachers, Winnie offered to help Coach Fillmore bake and sell biscuits to raise money for the baseball team. Coach Fillmore offered to talk to Winnie and Cairo during their lunch period to go over the specs, but Winnie said, “Hey, um, I think it’d be easier if you just gave me your phone. I could text you the specs. It’d be faster that way.” After Winnie put her phone number into Coach Fillmore’s phone, she shockingly put the phone down her blouse.
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| Mr. Miller at Cairo's Home |
After class, on a following day, Mr. Miller mistakenly placed Cairo’s phone in his leather messenger bag, but instead of giving Cairo her phone at school, he took it to her house while her parents were “permanently abroad”. Consequently, the student and teacher kissed, which caused Cairo to feel brave, and elated, but anguished. Cairo said,
“I didn’t know it was possible to feel this brave. A kiss. A muse. It is a question. It is an unlocked door. It is elation. An anguish. It is the inch and the mile. Don’t look into the sun they say. The fuck do they know?”
Subsequently, Cairo turned in her Creative Writing Midterm essay, which was about a student-teacher affair between Alice and Mr. Murphy. Here’s an excerpt:
He was against her then, and Alice felt a push of muscular wetness between her legs. Mr. Murphy placed his slender hands over hers and guided her to the mound at her center pressing her fingers into the dark fold there.”
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| Mr. Miller and Cairo |
Cairo said that the essay was about “two like people abnegating social conventions” and “inexorable attraction”, but Mr. Miller opined that it was porn.
Cairo, “[...] It’s about two like-people abnegating social convention. You know, it’s a commentary on the sexual anesthetization of a culture that’s super saturated with pornography. It’s about the inefficacy of romantic dogmas on young people’s expectations. It’s about inexorable attraction. It’s layered.”
Mr. Miller, “This is pornography.”
Interestingly, after Mrs. Harker, Mr. Miller’s wife, read Cairo’s essay, she informed her husband that Cairo was in love with him and Cairo wanted him badly.
Mrs. Harker, “Baby, it’s a love letter. She’s got it bad [for you].”
Cairo scolded Mr. Miller for building the world that her essay was based on, blurring the lines of what was considered appropriate behavior between a student and teacher, and scolding Cairo for crossing that line. Cairo said,
“You built the world. You built the fantasy, not on the page, in real life. You can’t blur the lines and then expect me to see a boundary when I suddenly cross it.”
But Cairo surmised that Mr. Miller rejected her essay because he was jealous of her writing. Cairo said,
“This is good. And you know it is. So let’s examine the real issue. It’s not my writing. It’s yours. [...] Overreaching without ambition. [...] It means you weren’t brave enough to be better. Means you’re deliberately impotent. It means that you Jonathan Miller are mediocre. [...] How disappointing you must be to those who had believed you’d be more.”
Due to Cairo’s essay, her affair with Mr. Miller ended just as quickly as it began. Heartbroken, Cairo said poetically,
“Heartbreak is a slow-motion car crash [...] It tastes like graveyard dirt. It smells like burning flowers. It feels like violence.”
To a sobbing Cairo, whom was drowning her sorry in vin straight from the bottle, Winnie asked, “Are you still into him?”
Cairo responded, “He’s a pretender. You know, at least what you see with Boris is what you get. He’s, like, imitation crab and gas station sushi.”
Winnie pressed, “Aren’t you in love with him?”
Cairo responded with her own age-gap question, “You fuck [Coach] Fillmore yet?
Subsequently, Winnie asked, “Do you think he likes me?”
Cairo, “Well, do you wanna be liked or do you wanna be fucked? ‘Cause those are very different things for girls who look like you.”
Winnie, “I want both.”
Speaking of Coach Fillmore, Cairo told Winnie to inform him, via a text, that they were alone together and measuring the depths of their sexuality, which, per Cairo, is what all girls do when they’re alone at night.
Cairo dictated, “You should tell him you’re with me. And that we’re doing what all girls do when they’re alone at night.”
BeFilledMore 9:04 PM: And what might that be?
Cairo dictated, “We are measuring the depths of our sexuality within the safe confines of our friendship.”
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| Cairo and Minnie Make-Out and Sext for Coach Fillmore |
Next, Cairo told Winnie to take off her top, because they were going to make-out for Coach Fillmore.
Cairo, “Take off your shirt.”
Winnie, “What? Why?”
Cairo, “We are gonna make-out. For him, not for you.”
Winnie, “Well, it can be a little for me.”
Subsequently, Winnie sexted Coach Fillmore a picture of her passionately kissing Cairo - in their bras.
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| Mr. Miller and Cairo |
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