Movie Review: The Girl Next Door

Stars (Out of 10): 8

One Word Summary: Old-Fun

Movie Details: Girl Next Door, The Comedy | Romance MPAA RATING R for strong sexual content, language and some drug/alcohol use 97 minutes | Color USA WRITTEN BY Stuart Blumberg David Wagner (also story) Brent Goldberg (also story)   DIRECTED BY Luke Greenfield THEATRICAL RELEASE Apr 9, 2004   Relevant Sites: IMDB Official Movie Website Watch The Movie Trailers Shopping: Shop Amazon for items related to this movie. Shop for movie posters at AllPosters

"The Girl Next Door" Review:

          The Girl Next Door is about Matthew, an overachieving high school senior who realizes that he has no great memories from high school, and that his life has been… well, boring. Enter Danielle, Matthew's beautiful new neighbor, after catching him watching her through his window, Danielle makes him strip and run down a street naked. The change is refreshing for Matthew who can't think of a crazy thing he's ever done, and for Danielle who just loves the way he looks at her. All that changes when Matthew's porno obsessed friend sees an 'adult film' Danielle starred in. What's a boy to do?

          I kept the summary pretty brief, but you know what's gonna happen don't you? Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy finds a huge flaw in girl, boy tries to reform girl, girl is offended and runs away, boy changes his mind, then either girl forgives boy, or girl gives boy the finger. We've seen it all before, Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams in Chasing Amy, and probably most other movies with strippers, prostitutes, or porn stars. The difference… never mind, there isn't a difference, not in that sense anyway.

          The movie I've heard Girl Next Door compared to the most is Risky Business; there are similarities there too, but they don't show up until later in the movie (and I don't want to spoil it). The scale of the comparison has been overdone, but this movie does have a vintage feel to it. Unlike the more recent teen sex comedies, (like American Pie and Road Trip) The Girl Next Door is less about gross out, low brow humor; and surprisingly, because the movie's about a porn star, it's less about sex too. Instead it's a movie driven by fresh humor, a great ending, well developed characters, and an extremely talented cast.

          Anyone with eyes and a (never mind, this is a family site) doesn't need to be told why Elisha Cuthbert was cast in this movie; she's absolutely gorgeous. She's one of the stars of TV's 24, and had a small role in Old School, but this was her brake through performance. Unlike her American Pie counterpart, Shannon Elizabeth, who provided little but eye candy and a bad foreign accent, Cuthbert provides the eye candy, but she's not just there for show, she backs it up with a relatively strong performance (let's not get ahead of ourselves, this isn't exactly an Oscar film).

          Emile Hirsch proved he was a rising young star in The Emperor's Club, but I remember him most from all the buzz surrounding him in Project Greenlight season two, when he seemed like the perfect actor for the role but turned it down. With two more movies coming out this year, Hirsch looks like he's turning his talent into a great young career, and I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of him, in comedies and dramas.

What makes a teen comedy a good teen comedy; it seems to be a good ending, and The Girl Next Door has that. For a story that was relatively predictable, although there were some interesting plot reversals where the movie could have just died, this movie has an interesting finale. Of course there's the usual, where-are-they-now clip collage at the end with the I've-learned-a-lesson voiceover, but The Girl Next Door at least puts in the effort to surprise us a little bit with a good ending, a well written script and memorable characters.

The Bottom Line is that The Girl Next Door is as entertaining and funny as any movie of this genre. Cuthbert and Hirsch are a great onscreen couple, and are surrounded by a hilarious supporting cast (Timothy Olyphant and Paul Dano). It's an interesting story, that's well written and well performed; for a straight out good time at the movies, look no further than The Girl Next Door.