‘I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment, mum.’
‘Well, we can’t all be appointments.’
‘Millie Lies Low’ directed by Michelle Savill is a beautifully told story about the pressure faced by many young people to overachieve and become the absolute best at what they do. Mille (Ana Scotney) is set to start an internship in New York but has a panic attack on the plane and stays put in Wellington, only to pretend as if she is in New York by posting extravagantly planned photos on Instagram. We see the extreme measures Mille takes to appear as if she is having the time of her life in New York whilst she is hiding in a tent, avoiding her friends, and desperately trying to get a loan for another ticket to New York. As director Michelle Savill stated (paraphrasing here) after the screening of her film at EIFF 2022, ‘smart people do dumb things’. The large posters and advertisements of Millie and her internship opportunity serve as a constant reminder of the pressure on young people in the age of technology and social media to be constantly posting and overexaggerating about our achievements. Whether it is on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, there is a constant stream of boasting posts. Millie Lies Low explores this overwhelming pressure to overperform in life and prove to the world that you are supposedly doing well. Millie refuses to believe that she had a panic attack on the plane and refuses to believe her mother’s diagnosis when she insists that Millie seeks help for her panic attacks. Millie is determined to overcome any obstacle she faces as we see with her elaborate posts and excuses to get a loan. We see from her relationship with her mother and friends that Millie may not always have been 100% true to herself on this journey to get this internship and from this realisation Millie can break free from the immense pressure of the modern world.