Was Ebert Right? The Girl Next Door (2004)

2004 saw the release of one of my favorite teenage sex comedies, The Girl Next Door. Roger Ebert hated the film. Was he right?

In the 3 plus decades I have been reading Roger Ebert's movie reviews, I have disagreed with him many times. Who hasn't? There have only been a handful of times I have been in total disagreement with him. I have previously written about his hatred of HELLRAISER and now I am writing about his hatred of THE GIRL NEXT DOOR.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR tells the story of Matthew Kidman, who is a high school senior about to graduate from college when he meets the titular character, Danielle, played by the gorgeous Elisha Cuthbert, in one of the best castings during that time. Kidman finds out Danielle used to be a pornstar and it messes with his head. After breaking up with Kidman, Danielle decides to get back into the porn business but Kidman won't have anything of it. He gets her back out, before she shoots a frame of footage, and they are back as a couple.

As I stated at the beginning of this piece, Ebert hated this film. Let's see why.

The studio should be ashamed of itself for advertising “The Girl Next Door” as a teenage comedy. It’s a nasty piece of business, involving a romance between a teenage porn actress and a high school senior. A good movie could presumably be made from this premise — a good movie can be made from anything, in the right hands and way — but this is a dishonest, quease-inducing “comedy” that had me feeling uneasy and then unclean. Who in the world read this script and thought it was acceptable?

Ebert calls the film a "nasty piece of work" but negates to talk about the stuff that was in teenage sex comedies around this time. Remember when Jason Biggs broadcasts Shannon Elizabeth nude in AMERICAN PIE? This was played for laughs but has been seen as creepy. Ebert happened to like that film. Ebert seems to be fine with some nasty stuff but not others. He also calls the film "a dishonest, queasy-inducing ' comedy '" I didn't get that feeling at all watching the film. I found the film to be quite funny and very touching and humble. It wants to entertain while giving us something a bit different. It is a comedy and a very good one at that.

Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) has two personalities: In one, she’s a sweet, misunderstood kid who has never been loved, and in the other she’s a twisted emotional sadist who amuses herself by toying with the feelings of the naive Matthew. The movie alternates between these personalities at its convenience, making her quite the most unpleasant character I have seen in some time.

Ebert then goes on to call Danielle a "twisted emotional sadist who amuses herself by toying with the feelings of a naive Matthew." Is he talking about her messing with him when they first meet because that fits into the teenage comedy mold quite well? Or is he talking about her going to get back into porn because of the way Matthew treated her upon finding out she was an ex-pornstar because that makes sense? She thought her saw her as the girl next door but he acutally saw her as a pornstar who will fuck anyone (this is very temporary but also fits into the misunderstanding aspect of every teenage sex comedy. Danielle spends the majority of the film being a normal person who has fallen in love with someone who sees her as a normal person. It is actually quite touching and actually elevates above many of the teenage sex comedies of the era. In fact, this is one of the best films to come out during this time. Danielle is not a sadist. She cares very much for Matthew and we all blessed to watch their relationship grow during the course of the film, even if there is the slight detour in the middle.

There’s worse. The movie produces a basically nice guy, named Hugo Posh (James Remar), also a porn king, who is Kelly’s rival. That a porn king saves the day gives you an idea of the movie’s limited moral horizons. 

I am going to bring this up now even though he does later. Ebert correctly compares THE GIRL NEXT DOOR to the Tom Cruise film, RISKY BUSINESS. In that film, Tom Cruise, who a senior in high school, the same as Matthew in this film, destroys his dad's Porsche while his parents are away and opens up a brothel to pay for the repairs. Let's say that again, Tom Cruise, a TEENAGER in RISKY BUSINESS, opens a whorehouse in his own house. A teenager opening up a brothel is a bit weirder than a teenage falling in love with a former pornstar. 

Ebert also talks about the film's "limited moral horizons." I guess a film where a guy and a girl connect in a way many people will never experience is a bad thing. Look at the way Matthew looks at Danielle is one of the best and most honest things baout the film. This is a great love story that Ebert clearly didn't get.

The nature of their film is yet another bait-and-switch, in a movie that wants to seem dirtier than it is. Like a strip show at a carnival, it lures you in with promises of sleaze, and after you have committed yourself for the filthy-minded punter you are, it professes innocence.

Matthew has to raise money that was stolen by Danielle's former handler, played with a true scariness by Timothy Olyphant, to bring a genius kid to America to study, so he decides to shoot a porn in his school during prom. Ebert refers to this as "sleazy" but I don't see it that way. The film has already established the universe the film takes place in (it certainly isn't ours) so this doesn't seem out of place. What does seem out of place are the jocks who participate in the film. In fact, one of the jocks can't perform so you would think he would ruin the plan for everyone else. Maybe he didn't want to embarrass himself.

The film that is shot in the school turns out to be a sex ed film that brings sex ed films into the 21st century by covering things the sex ed films we were shown didn't. The big sell of this film is the showing of how to put a condom on a real penis, something many of us wish we were shown before our first times. I liked this twist. Sure, it seems like these guys are taking advantage of Danielle's contacts to make a quicky porn flick to make the money Matthew needs.

One necessary element is to distance the heroine from the seamier side of her life. “The Girl Next Door” does the opposite, actually taking Danielle and her “producer” Kelly to an adult film convention in Las Vegas, and even into a dimly lit room where adult stars apparently pleasure the clients. (There is another scene where Kelly, pretending to be Matthew’s friend, takes him to a lap dance emporium and treats him.) We can deal with porn stars, lap dances and whatever else, in a movie that declares itself and plays fair, but to insert this material into something with the look and feel of a teen comedy makes it unsettling. The TV ads will attract audiences expecting something like “American Pie“; they’ll be shocked by the squalid content of this film.

Ebert ends his review by talking about how the film was advertised. The film is advertised as a sex comedy but doesn't even mention the darker aspects of the middle section. I can see why he would think the film falsely presents itself but I don't agree fully. I don't think the audience for this film would find it all that "unsettling." We all have had those ideas of what the porn industry is like and the film respresents those ideas pretty well. Any normal person is going to know the porn industry isn't everything it's cracked up to be. It's also not like the porn convention stuff doesn't have comedy in it. It does and some pretty good comedy at that. The only dark stuff comes in the form of the Timothy Olyphant character. I said he was scary and that is the truth. This is the only thing about the film I can see people having a problem with. However, we should not overlook the pimp character, played by Joe Pantoliano, from RISKY BUSINESS who is equally as scary as the Olyphant character is here.

So, do I think Ebert was wrong? Hell yes I do. I can see all of his points but I don't agree with the vast majority of them. I was in my mid-20s when the film was released in 2004 and Ebert was in his 60s. The film is not made for him and his review shows that. There is nothing wrong with that. There are  plenty of films he has loved that were clearly not made for me. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY is not a film that was made for me but Ebert loved it. THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is a very funny film that has a lot of heart and some of the best character relationships I have seen in a teenage sex comedy. I love this film and can watch it whenever.