Review of The Girl Next Door (2004) by Conner R — 07 Jun 2011

The Girl Next Door is easily the greatest teen comedy of the last ten years. It blends the greatest elements of Risky Business and The Graduate, along with it's own take on the genre and results in an amazing experience.

While it undoubtedly deals with a lot of outrageous topics, it never forgets to stay in reality. There aren't really any cheese ball characters or annoying stereotypes, everyone acts like real people.

The casting of people like Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert and Timothy Olyphant only helps make this movie more than just a clever written script. It also happens to look a great deal better than what you'd expect and has some really great techniques that aren't necessary for the desired storytelling; that's what makes it so surprising.

I like that the story has real fears of real teens, rather than it just being about sex. Despite the marketing of this movie, this is nothing like Porky's or American Pie. It delivers its material and treats its characters with respect and doesn't cheap out with gratuitous nudity or language.

It also avoids living in a fantasy land where there aren't consequences for risky moves and dating a porn star. I'm sure there are a lot of people that will just lump this into the raunchy teen comedy genre, but it's just nothing like that.

You'd be completely missing the point if you just write this off as a goofball adventure. The Girl Next Door is actually saying something about the point in life where you really don't have any idea about what the real world is.