High School Genre Film Worth Seeing

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2004)

The Girl Next Door is a perfect example of the lack of perception that movie studios sometimes operate with. When test screenings reportedly went through the roof, Fox knew it had a potential hit on its hands, and set out to market the hell out of it. It was important, though, how they marketed it--because though GND is a successful high school teen comedy, it's not necessarily a sex comedy. The trailer for the movie wants to promote a cross between Risky Business and American Pie, with a dash of porn tossed in, and so the advertising pushes the sex aspect, even though it's NOT what the movie's about.
The Girl Next Door begins by evoking the feeling of dread that 99% of us get as we wind into the spring of senior year--that taste of emptiness that starts to fill the place in our minds we'd been saving for the kind of nostalgic memories that you write about in your last yearbook. Emile Hirsch is Matthew Kidman, dealing with this same problem as a potential Georgetown attendee with political aspirations who feels like he's missed out. And he pulls it off. He's neurotic, repressed, frustrated and scared all at once.
And then Elisha Cuthbert moves into the neighborhood to shake things up.
Cuthbert is Danielle, the ex-porn star with a heart of gold who's looking for a fresh start. Naturally, Matthew and Danielle hit it off; she shows him how to have all the fun he's been missing, and he gives her the confidence and courage to believe in starting over. Naturally, problems ensue when Matthew's academics begin to disintegrate.
Timothy Olyphant plays scene stealer as Danielle's porn agent, and Chris Marquette and Paul Dano fill out what could have been hollow supporting roles as Hirsch's buddies to give the movie a deeper overall feel. While the spin on Risky Business is obvious and moments of sentimentalism and ludicrousness make you groan at times, it's always compensated for and ultimately overpowered by the movie's acute sense of pathos--it knows what should be endearing and what should be funny about a coming of age experience that features a porn star (i.e. three high school kids at a convention for the adult film industry in Vegas).
As a comedy, The Girl Next Door is funnier than most anything out so far this year (save Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine). In terms of box office, the problem maybe seems to stem from the fact that Cuthbert's star was skyrocketing before the movie was ever in theaters, compelling Fox's marketing department to push the focus in the wrong direction. But the bottom line is that this movie is the first quality teen comedy to dramatize end-of-high-school anxiety since Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And if you think about it, Cuthbert's character is no more ridiculous than Ferris. (Seriously, did you ever know someone that EVERYONE liked in high school, who could get away with anything? Me either.) Go see this movie.