Millie Lies Low

Millie Lies Low kicks off with an interesting idea. Also, an idea I was instantly uncomfortable with.

I don’t like over-focus on personal suffering, though that is me. Please don’t let my personal bugbears get in the way of your enjoying a drama that’s both different and, in its own small way, has some stuff to say about social awkwardness, anxiety, and the fear of offending. Though there may be other reasons for being less than positive about Millie and her lying low.

Here’s the set-up. We open with Millie (Ana Scotney) on a plane – and then Millie getting off a plane. It looks like a panic attack. Unfortunately, that doesn’t count as a medical emergency. So, it’s goodbye flight and, more seriously, hello to a $2,000 bill if she wants a new ticket. Did I mention that Millie is a talented New Zealand architectural student on her way to a first internship with a prestigious New York partnership? Yeah, that’s core. Because now, how is she to get to her new career, new life?

And what to tell her friends?

For a moment, Millie ponders coming clean. But then, nah! She’s gonna lie low in her hometown while scrounging for another ticket.

This, in turn, means two things. The first, that she must spin an ever-increasing web of lies around how great life is for her in New York. And second, because she cannot quite bring herself to lie low low, she keeps connecting – mostly incognito - with friends and acquaintances who think she’s gone.

It is oddly reminiscent of Blithe Spirit, and all films derivative. The central character is gone, departed. Friends have moved on. But what is this? Here they are, still hanging around, visible only to a select few. Because the one thing Millie cannot really manage is staying low. She hears things said about her she really ought not. She becomes mute witness to the small coin of daily betrayal on the part of friends who, in their defence are doing no more than moving on with their lives.

Think Narnia, of all places, and the moment where Lucy has the chance to learn what people really think about her when they don’t know she’s listening. That is never going to end well.

Meanwhile, there is a word from the blurb that I have so far omitted. With justification, I think. Because this film is described as “comedy drama”.

OK. There are odd moments of lightness, escalating, even to a mild chuckle. But comedy? No. The entire tenor of the film is downbeat. Millie hangs around like some not-quite-departed spirit or, well, a bad smell. Scowling at all and sundry; her face set in a rictus scowl; she wanders the night, intruding into spaces and places she ought not. Listening a lot. Learning a little.

By film's end, she understands herself and what matters to her a bit better. But because Millie is not fundamentally likeable, and friends and family mostly appear at arm’s length, not so much characters to interact with, but to spy upon, I fear I came away not caring that much.

Add to the by-night sobriety and generally sombre soundtrack, and this really is not a laugh-a-minute. Creds, I guess, to director and writer Michelle Savill, plus co-writer Eli Kent, for trying to do something different: a deep delve into the motivation of a young woman in a moment of crisis.

In the end, though, I fear it did not work for me. I was not amused; not entertained; barely engaged. Perhaps it will work better for you.