The Girl Next Door

Teen sex comedies are risky business. Done right, they can make for extremely enjoyable watching, usually eschewing subtlety and wit in favour of all-out hilarity. In the wrong hands, however, this combination of contrived plots, farts, dick jokes and bad twenty-something actors pretending to be teenagers can be absolutely lethal. Such is the case with The Girl Next Door, this year's most publicized offering of the genre. Written by former acolytes of AtomFilms, best known for their cheap soft-core porno parodies like Saving Ryan's Privates, this film is a tedious 105-minute excursion into limp jokes, flaccid situations, sterile acting and a really drippy conclusion.

Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is the top student in his year. He's due to graduate soon, and he hopes to win a scholarship to Georgetown, but he and his cardboard cut-out nerd friends Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano) feel they've been missing out on life, studying instead of partying. All this changes when Matthew catches a glimpse of his sexy new next-door neighbour Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) undressing. Danielle decides to get her revenge by forcing him to run down the street in the nude, but the two quickly find themselves falling in love. Danielle, it turns out, is a porn star who has escaped from the business and wants to "settle down". Alas, all is not rosy, as her former producer Kelly (Timothy Olyphant) turns up to lure her back to the world of dirty movies. Gallant Matthew decides to come crusading to the rescue, but soon finds himself with more on his hands than he bargained for.

Quite apart from the fact that most of the humour in the film quite blatantly isn't funny, the biggest problem here is the uneven tone. While the film is marketed around its sexual content and comedy elements, there is in fact very little sex on display, and writers David T. Wagner, Brent Goldberg and Stuart Blumberg seem to veer between creating a film that is intended to be enjoyed simply as a lighthearted comedy and something with more substance. The relationship between Matthew and Danielle, and indeed the unfortunate predicaments they get into, are at times treated with utter seriousness, but the fact that changes in tone seem to appear out of the blue, plus the laughably clichéd nature of the "serious" material, completely rob them of any impact. The American Pie films, especially the first one, were able to switch between the comedic and the serious in a way that didn't feel forced, but in this respect The Girl Next Door comes across as a clunky imitator.

The character of Danielle is a complete cipher, simply designed so that she can be moulded into whatever the current scene requires of her. She can be naughty, she can be sensitive. She can enjoy being sexually provocative one minute, only to claim she wants nothing to do with the sex industry the next. As such, she is a thoroughly unbelievable and unappealing indivudual, and unfortunately Elisha Cuthbert's performance is nothing special. A popular star on 24, a show that I have yet to watch a single episode of, I would guess, based on her performance in The Girl Next Door, that her following is a result of her looks rather than her acting ability. Emile Hirsch fares a little better a Matthew, but he is too bland to be particularly interesting. Only in one scene, during which he tries in vain to control the effects of taking Ecstacy, does he show any real promise. This scene is based around physical comedy and extreme exaggeration, making it completely at odds with his character throughout the rest of the film, and I get the impression that this is his forte rather than serious dramatic roles. The biggest laughs, and indeed the best performance, come from Timothy Olyphant, in the role of porn producer Kelly. He looks like a young Jack Nicholson and is just as annoying (in an amusing way), and the film springs to life when he is on-screen, only to die when he disappears.

Ultimately, The Girl Next Door fails to entertain on even the most basic level, apart from in a handful of scenes. While there are a few ideas here and there that, if expanded on an developed further, could have been successful, the writers will have to harden their skills if they want to compete with the stiff competition facing them in the form of the American Pie juggernaut. This film, overall, is for those with nerves of steel only.

Picture

The Girl Next Door is presented anamorphically in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

Despite the overly-contrasty 20th Century Fox logo that opens the film, this is a very good transfer. It looks filtered, but not so much that it ruins the texture of the film completely. Colours, contrast and brightness are impeccable, and although edge enhancement is visible, it generally only affects a handful of shots. There is a light grain throughout the film, and although the encoding could have been a little better in some places - wide shots occasionally look a little crushed - overall there is not much to complain about. I have been critical of a number of Fox's transfers in the past, but this is definitely one of their best.

Sound

The 448 Kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is perfectly adequate for a film without much in the way of surround action. This is definitely a front-focused track, and the dialogue is always consistently clear. The sound stage does widen out during a handful of scenes, such as the porn convention in Vegas, but overall this is not demo material. It's simply a high quality track that does what is expected of it.

English subtitles are provided for the film itself and all the extras, including the commentaries.

Menu

Themed with clips and music from the film, the menu transitions are overly long and, annoyingly, cannot be skipped.

A generous 28 chapter stops are provided.

Extras

Director's commentary - Luke Greenfield provides a fairly insightful commentary, but for me it is marred by the fact that he clearly thinks the movie is better than it actually is. With a film as lightweight as this, it does become irritating after a while to listen to a director who talks about characters' motives and attempts to dissect the psychology of what is happening on-screen. It's not a bad commentary at all, and Greenfield manages to fill the entire running time without any major gaps, but his approach is at odds with the film itself.

Scene specific commentary by Emile Hirsch - Hirsch provides commentary on four different scenes, but he doesn't really have much information to impart. He comes across as somewhat inarticulate, often spending long gaps of time saying nothing, then speaking very slowly with a lot of hesitating. Most of his comments tend to relate to on-set anecdotes, as is frequently the case with actors' commentaries, but at least this track has none of the pretention that mars the director's commentary.

Scene specific commentary by Elisha Cuthbert - Commenting on five scenes, three of which are the same as Hirsch's, Cuthbert's track is more in line with Greenfield's. It's quite difficult to take seriously anyone who discusses the motivations and empathy of character who is a cardboard cut-out filled with movie porn-star clichés.

Feature trivia track: revealing The Girl Next Door - This pop-up fact track provides a combination of trivia and quotes from various members of the cast and crew at reasonably regular intervals. None of the information imparted is particularly interesting or revealing, but I guess you could impress your friends with the knowledge that the average male sees his first porno mag at the age of 11.

The Eli Experience - A semi-amusing but ultimately pointless 8-minute featurette in which Chris Marquette (Eli in the film) infiltrates a real-life porn convention and sets up a number of embarrassing and/or risqué situations.

"A Look Next Door" EPK - This is a typically content-free, back-patting advertisement to see the film, and at 10 minutes, it feels overly long. In essence, it amounts to little more than a bunch of clips from the movie intercut with unsubstantial interview footage and behind-the-scenes clips.

Gag Reel - Two and a half minutes' worth of outtakes and alternate takes, some of them funny, most not.

Deleted and extended scenes - 16 deleted and extended scenes are provided here, all with optional commentary by director Luke Greenfield. Unfortunately, the lack of a "Play All" function makes this section extremely annoying to navigate, especially given that many of the scenes included here are very short.

A still gallery and the theatrical trailer are also included.

Conclusion

Unless you have already seen the film, I find it difficult to give this release my recommendation. For those who enjoyed it, the presentation is of a high standard and should certainly appeal, but for anyone else, I would urge renting it before putting down money for this muddled and unfunny comedy.