The Girl Next Door (2004)
The Girl Next Door is a tonally confused romantic comedy, starring Paul Dano as an awkward teenager named Klitz. It combines vaguely misogynistic humour with poorly-aged romcom beats and the tenderness of late high school friendship to make something strange and far-fetched. Good luck tearing your eyes away from it, though.
On paper, The Girl Next Door tells the story of everyman Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch), who falls in love with the girl next door, Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), who turns out to be a porn actress. In practise it is a story about graduation, senior prom, sexual autonomy, friendship, manipulation, and betrayal, against a backdrop of early-2000s pop rock. So much of this film revolves around pornography that it feels right to call it a "sex comedy", except it bizarrely handles the concepts of sex and pornography more maturely than most "sex comedies" out there (but not infallibly, which we'll get into later).
The Good
The Girl Next Door finds its unlikely gem in Timothy Olyphant, who absolutely kills it as pornography producer Kelly. He offers a much-needed sophistication with his delivery on lines like "this is breaking and entering / this is politics". He has great chemistry with Hirsch and watching him on screen is delightful.
Both Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano) are convincing as Matthew's loser friends. Despite delivering some tired and poorly-aged jokes on identity, Eli serves as the main source of comic relief and does it well ("if you don't fuck her, I'll kill myself" comes to mind).
Costume designer Marilyn Vance clearly had a vision for Danielle's wardrobe, and it pays off. The suede jackets and crystal necklaces emphasise the powerful yet approachable sides of her. Set designer John Berger has his moment at the Las Vegas adult film convention, which is suitably slick and glitzy.
There are several interesting creative choices with camerawork in the film, and it's a shame they're few and far between. The montage of Las Vegas and the confrontation between Matthew and Kelly at school both use exciting sequences and camerawork, however briefly.
While the plot starts off contrived and predictable, the $30 grand subplot and a genuinely enjoyable third act save the film from blending into the background as yet another early-00s sex flick. It takes a while to find its feet, but when it does, you can't look away.
The Bad
The Girl Next Door takes a while to decide what kind of film it wants to be, and for that reason, the myriad of plot developments can initially seem convoluted. During the first act, only Danielle is fleshed out enough to be likeable, Eli's personality remains entrenched in the sex-obsessed teenage boy trope, and Klitz barely says anything memorable. I wouldn't be surprised if it transpired that the first third of the film was dragged out of a rubbish bin for boring teen comedy ideas and lopped onto the start of a separate, more interesting script.
Matthew comes off as unlikeable in a few scenes, not least the one where he follows Danielle to the adult film convention in Vegas and embarrassingly attempts to reconcile while she's on stage doing her job. His persistence is presented as romantic, and not the least bit creepy. Unlike his earlier behaviour of watching Danielle get undressed in front of her window, Matthew never gets his comeuppance for this and is in fact rewarded with Danielle's affections.
The suspension of disbelief occasionally crosses into parody. During the opening, Matthew laments that he isn't one of the popular kids, who always skip school to go to the beach. I had to rewatch to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting that part as a commentary on how unbelievable teen comedies make their lives seem. But it's played completely straight. As is the scene where Kelly, a grown man, somehow enters the school and storms into class to shout at Matthew, and the one where the principle discovers a consent form for pornography lying around school and decides not to think about it further after Matthew unconvincingly denies any knowledge of it.
Danielle's job choice as a porn actress is not explicitly presented as degrading or morally wrong, but the film pushes the idea that it was "the wrong job for her". This is despite any confirmation from Danielle about her thoughts and feelings around pornography (this is never discussed). The heavy themes of sex work are underdeveloped and ambiguous.
Also underdeveloped is the sense of friendship between Matthew, Eli, and Klitz. Only until the third act do we feel as though they're a convincing friend group - and it's definitely not because of the "we're a tripod" thing they try to introduce at the end. I can't remember the full phrase, which should give you an idea on how weak it was.
The Rating
The Girl Next Door was, despite its flaws, an enjoyable watch. You get a cool mix of "so bad it's good" and "oh shit this is kind of good" for 1hr40mins. Just don't think about it for too long, I beg of you, or else it falls apart. Why do they allow 17-18 year olds to become so intertwined with pornography production? Why would teachers distribute a sex education film to the school that they know contains footage of another student's penis? Just turn it off!
I give The Girl Next Door (2004) a 5/10.
