Much better than one would expect

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2004)

Girl Next Door, The (2004) Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Nicholas Downs, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Marquette, Paul Dano, James Remar, Jacob Young, D: Luke Greenfield. Straight-arrow high school senior spies on the girl next door, a gorgeous sexpot with a past in the adult film industry who now wants to start over. Then her ex-boyfriend/producer (Olyphant) shows up, hoping to bring her back into the business, while the high schooler knows she has a heart of gold and deserves better. Hirsch and Cuthbert are a sincere and engaging couple, and the laughs are certainly there, making this a cut above the norm-surprisingly smarter, sweeter, and more mature than its smutty premise suggests. Borrows heavily from RISKY BUSINESS and wanders onto a few plot detours that show the movie's true teen sex-romp colors and sometimes betray its sincerity (Hirsch's character replaces the stolen money he raised to bring a Cambodian foreign-exchange student by making a sex-ed film at prom). Running Time: 100 minutes and rated R for strong sexual content, language, and some drug/alcohol use. ***