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From the Past

Films on the to-do list

  • Armageddon Time
  • Black Widow
  • Chimes at Midnight
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer
  • Last Christmas
  • Remember Sunday
  • Shazam! 2
  • Thor: Love and Thunder
  • Spy Guys

The Girl Next Door (2004)

Film review: The Girl Next Door (2004), directed by Luke Greenfield

Senior high can be such a tricky place. Hormones all over the place, homework and senior pranks to be done, proms to attend, important speeches to be held, scholarships to obtain … and then a really hot girl moves in next door. And she fancies you almost as much as you fancy her. And then it turns out she’s actually a porn star.

Huh.

That’s kind of how Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) reacts. It gets more complicated, when Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) has her manager or director or whatever he’s supposed to be (Kelly, played by Timothy Olyphant). He’s not all too happy about his star starting to have second thoughts about her lucrative career in the adult entertainment business, and therefore starts throwing spanners in the works. It even involves stealing an adult movie award from a rival director (James Remar, a.k.a. Dexter‘s adoptive dad).

It’s a romantic comedy that seems to have been put in a blender with American Pie. Even the lead character’s tartan wallpaper is the same! And it’s all about the future, what awaits after senior prom. Things like sex and having friends who also are obsessed by the subject.

It’s not a bad film, but it’s a bit weird. It keeps going between being a cutesy love story of two youngsters and a goofy high school comedy and then … women in thongs. It kinda works, though? Funny how Matty and his two best friends look so young but the jocks in the same year look at least 25. Then again, in Grease, all the 16-year-olds looked a lot like 35, so there you go. Only in movies, eh?

At one point I thought it was taking a really dark turn, but then it turned out that the suggestion that had just been made was a joke. Aah-ha-ha-ha. Don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed. The movie itself couldn’t really disappoint, because I didn’t exactly have high hopes to begin with. It wouldn’t be my first choice of movie, and if you could compare it to anything other than American Pie, I’d probably say it’s not too different from 100 Girls. Dorky-boy-meets-hot-chick. Yeah, nothing new under the sun.

2 out of 5 swimming pools.

Traxy

An easily distracted and over-excited introvert who never learns to go to bed at a reasonable time. Enjoys traveling (when there's not a plague on), and taking photos of European architecture. Cares for cats, good coffee and Boardwalk Empire. A child of her time, she did media studies in school and still can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

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