Emilie Hirsch is high school senior Matthew Kidman, class president and every parent�s dream child- he even aspires to be the US President, and is close to getting a scholarship to prestigious college Georgetown. It�s weeks from the end of school, and Matthew is realising that with all his good deeds, he�s missed out on having any good memories. Enter Elisha Cuthbert, playing Danielle. She�s house sitting for Matthew�s next door neighbour, and she�s here to teach him how to have fun. He falls for her, and then learns that she used to be a porn star.
Even from the above paragraph, it does sound like a standard American Pie knockoff. It�s really not, though. Matthew has more than your standard teen movie problems of being unpopular or an obsession with sex: he�s torn between what feels he should be- upstanding citizen, future leader- and what he secretly wants- to shed all the responsibility he�s brought down upon himself and just have fun, and be young. There�s a minor female empowerment riff, with Danielle getting defensive to Matthew over some strippers in one scene. A large part of the movie is about Matthew trying to save Danielle when her former line of work comes knocking in the form of her former producer Kelly, played by the scene stealing best thing in the movie, Timothy Olyphant. Matthew has a three way (so to speak) conflict between loving Danielle, knowing his responsibilities and wanting to rebel.
But then, there are some moments more suited to the genre. We get ditzy porn stars, a wacky chase scene at an pornography conference, a scene of being high in an inappropriate moment, a porn obsessed nerd best friend� the list goes on. And funnily enough, I think these are the moments that work a lot better. At times The Girl Next Door is trying to be too smart for its own good. It�s not that the more high brow issues are boring, they�re just really poorly mixed into the movie. The writers kind of wanted to have it both ways, when they really should have chosen one or the other. It almost seems as if it�s about five different films jammed together, and it�s the comedic ones that work more than the dramatic.
The other major problem is the story. Not the porn star story- if I were going to complain about that, I wouldn�t have even watched the movie in the first place. But the way things are set up and played out, while ultimately satisfying, with all loose ends tied up, is very jarring. There are too many plot elements- Kelly, a rival porn producer, a foreign exchange student�s travel fund, Danielle, Matthew�s college dreams, the upcoming prom- and they really don�t mix. Just when you think you�ve seen the climax (get it?) along comes another. This isn�t even in a Return of the King way, with twenty closing scenes. These are full, twenty minute sequences that look like endings, until there�s another. They could have axed one of these if they had left two or three earlier moments from the film on the cutting room floor, and it would still been long enough- as it is now, it�s overlong- and it would have worked a lot better.
The Girl Next Door has moments. It�s occasionally quite funny, and Elisha Cuthbert is ever so pretty (even if she�s clearly using a double in some scenes), and it does try to be smarter than it initially looks. However, it�s just ultimately too flawed to be considered good. Funnily enough, this is a movie that would be better off if it were stupider.