Review of The Girl Next Door (2004) by Luke H — 27 Feb 2011

Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is just an innocent, honor-roll receivin' kid whose only real interest is to graduate high school and go to his dream college: Georgetown. Although getting good grades in school and just waiting until he can go to college was satisfying for awhile, now he is becoming restless for something exciting to happen in his life. He gets just that when a beautiful woman moves next door, and when she catches him watching her get undressed from his bedroom window, she decides to come over and introduce herself. His parents tell him to show Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) around town, and that first night they get to know each other pretty well, atleast on Danielle's behalf. To get back at him for seeing her almost naked, she tricks him into getting out of her car and stripping in the street, and then she drives off, leaving him there with no clothes. For Matthew and Danielle, this is just the beginning of their tumultuous, but hilarious, relationship. All of this is new to Matthew, and he's just along for the ride, going along whatever crazy idea Danielle comes up with next. To make things even more interesting, Matthew finds out from his porn-obsessed best friend that Danielle is a porn-star.

Although initially wary of his new girlfriend's porn-star status, Matthew realizes that he doesn't care what she does. The only problem now is that she has to leave for Las Vegas for a porn convention, and then to possibly do more work, which means she won't be Matthew's neighbor anymore. Now, Matthew has to convince Danielle to quit the adult movie business, which means he has to go toe-to-toe with Kelly, (Timothy Olyphant) Danielle's manager, who wants her to continue with this business, because he believes she will be the next big thing in porn flicks. So now Matthew's life is really interesting: he has to balance school and grades and an upcoming scholarship speech with a porn-star girlfriend and a manager who quite possibly wants to kill him.

Although this movie may sound really raunchy, it's actually very endearing and sweet. And although it's not very believable, it's fun to believe something like this would happen. An innocent 17 year old boy falls in love with a not-so-innocent 19 year old porn-star girl, and it just works. It's cheesy and funny and kind of makes you want to roll your eyes, but you don't because you're too busy smiling at the fact that a teen movie can actually be kind of cool.