The film is a handsome surprise, albeit with comedy which doesn't always work and stances not hammered home; regardless, it is a hearty and substantial enough piece.

Rating: 6/10 (30 July 2011)

The Girl Next Door actually makes for a really involving and respectable enough piece, at least it does so right up to the point the lead nabs a peck with that of the titular girl next door. The whole thing might have made for a really smart short; Luke Greenfield striking us as a director able to slot together a telling piece and as a person able to establish; engage; progress and then conclude, with the film loosing rather a bit of energy once everything tanks to that the deserts of Nevada for a lot of running around and the forcing of the lead to having to infiltrate a mansion. Ultimately, the premise of a porn star moving in next door as a kid and his sexist, overly hormonal friends burgeon from school to university rings false; that is to say, the film is in no way the turgid, unholy mess that is worryingly promised when we observe it is about such a thing. Rather, the film takes its idea and decides to put its surprisingly likable young lead through a wringer of anti-social interactions; altercations with dangerous people and through a series of threatening situations which might spiral out of control after having been dragged to places those within feel they are adept to, but in actual fact are punching well above their weights.
The young lead is that of Matthew Kidman (Hirsch), an individual on the cusp of shifting from one level of the American educational system to the next, that of high-school and on into a somewhat prestigious university to study politics. Kidman is stuck in a proverbial middle-ground of no man's land within the realms of his school's social hierarchy; he is nowhere near that of a hardened jock, as is exemplary in the masses of cock-sure young men and their large automobiles-plus-successes-with-women whom surround his educational zone; but he is additionally, and on account of two frizzy-haired friends of his, several steps up from being labelled of the "geek" variety - Matt just existing on a plateau populated by himself as this middling kid, with few distinguishing features nor behavioural patterns. The finale of high school is nearing, and yearbooks are in the process of being filled; our Kidman struggling in that he cannot get words onto paper nor photographs of into albums when challenged with the idea of recording the events and the people that helped form him in his time there. The kid is on the verge of graduation without having faced the ignominy of marginalisation at the hands of the institute's proverbial bullies, nor indeed has he intermingled at the opposite end of the spectrum by garnering success at having captained the school's champion Football team to glory.
The film covers somewhat of an important chapter in Matthew's life as he dares to branch away; dares to push the boat out and get heavily involved in something seemingly way over his head, a general happening brought about by that aforementioned pornography actress. Elisha Cuthbert plays that actress, a woman named Danielle; a woman of slender figure, slinky movement, pouting lips and bright blonde hair, whose moving into the house next door to that of Matt's parents takes very little time for him to notice as such. From these beginnings, an energetic tale is spun out of a young adult with a blossoming persona which could tilt either way, and it is Danielle who goes on to further him down the route of formulating memories; something to write about and pictures of whatever that is required for that part of the yearbook - the joy being in how it sways him towards a mindset more inclined to be nastier and more sordid, before pulling it back and keeping it grounded whilst not falsifying its politics to any alarming extent.
Eventually, that of Timothy Olyphant's pornographer Kelly Simon enters proceedings; the film constructing somewhat of an initially positive and reassuring image of the man before slowly peeling away at the surface and beginning to paint a scummy, abject incarnation of the individual. His arc in this sense runs in tandem with that of his field's representation, which is sort of shown up, as a vacuous; aggressive minefield of maliciousness once everyone has been dragged out to Las Vegas for a Doug Liman's "Go" inspired romp so as to escape a proverbial wrath, although appears to recall that the film's target audience may very well be all-too fond of such things and thus, disappointingly restrains said politic from being too damning. Principally, the film is a coming of age; American high-school orientated sex comedy following someone nervous about the sex and with an attitude to the comedy which is strictly grounded and politically straight-and-narrow. The film's presence of a female, specifically that of someone whom specialises in being a star of pornography, is not the flimsy, loose-cannoned and misjudged procession of smut and trash that it might have been; rather, it is about a woman coming into the life of a young man, but being able to have the power to shape and inspire rather than roll over and play dead as an object of one's fantasies. The Girl Next Door is a middling, oft confused piece, but with content to get involved in and characters to get behind: a welcome change for the usual fare of this ilk.