NEW IN FILM

Directed by Luke Greenfield

20th Century Fox

There is something slightly disconcerting about The Girl Next Door. As you sit through its utterly ridiculous plot, you don’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted by its complete absurdity. This isn’t a typical high-school comedy, though it certainly does a good job of camouflaging itself as one. Included are all the necessary ingredients: the loser who might look vaguely attractive if he got a haircut and an Urban Outfitters gift certificate, his nerdier, uglier friends and the gorgeous blond that saves them from an eternity in A/V club purgatory. But in this particular film, that life-saving blond is an ex-porn star.

The loser in question is Matthew Kidman, played by newcomer Emile Hirsh, who falls in love with his neighbor, Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), the instant he sees her. The film then proceeds to try to convince us that Matthew’s love has very little to do with Danielle’s curvaceous figure or pouty lips, but rather her ability to bring him out of his shell.

The movie depicts every teenage boy’s fantasy, as Danielle immediately takes Matthew under her wing and introduces him to a life of skipping class, belly shirts and strip clubs. But the plot seems secondary to director Luke Greenfield’s desire to experiment with the use of porn as a motif while still adhering to the restrictions of an R rating. Once the viewer recognizes that most of the situations will not make sense and that Cuthbert will take every available opportunity to be in her underwear, it is surprisingly still possible to enjoy the film.

In a particularly humorous sequence, Matthew and his friends end up in a Las Vegas Adult Porn Convention in search of Danielle. The three boys are thrown into a world that only previously existed in inconspicuously named folders on their hard drives. From falling into cakes shaped like naked women to posing as directors in order to “test” a pair of willing adult actresses, the combined naivete and shrewdness of the boys provide some unexpectedly hilarious material.

We even feel some compassion for the growing bond between the sheltered high school senior and his ex-porn star love. By the end of the movie, the relationship remains fairly convincing, and viewers may actually find themselves rooting for the unlikely couple. The movie accomplishes this by maintaining some aspect of innocence in the relationship despite the abnormal circumstances. Matthew takes Danielle to his senior prom, where her former streetwalker style magically transforms itself into a sparkly red dress and an elegant up-do.

However, the illogical plot line, which grows only increasingly absurd as the movie progresses, almost irreparably damages the film. Once Matthew has entangled himself in the world of adult movie directors, the danger reaches an incongruously grim level where thousands of dollars, his scholarship to Georgetown and his life are at stake. Furthermore, The Girl Next Door features an ending that is not only predictable, but absurdly assumes that the career choice of adult film star is an obstacle that needs to be overcome like an illness or a bad drug habit. The mold of the standard high school film is certainly broken with The Girl Next Door, but in this particular instance, the result is merely soft-core blandness.

—Dominique M. Elie

Jersey Girl

Directed by Kevin Smith

Miramax Films

If, at some point five or ten years down the line, someone writes an article about Jennifer Lopez or Ben Affleck without mentioning Gigli, the formerly engaged couple will have Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl to thank. It’s been a long time since one couple mixed their personal and professional lives with such disastrous results: for Ben and Jen, Gigli fell just short of cinematically equaling Bonnie and Clyde’s shootout with the FBI.

Of the pair, Lopez gets far less time onscreen—a wedding scene was reportedly cut as a result of the Gigli backlash—but she conveys a surprising tenderness and insecurity in her small role as Gertrude, a polished literary agent and the wife of Ollie Trinke (Affleck), a workaholic music publicist whose pathological impatience is both his greatest asset and worst liability.

Gertrude dies in childbirth less than 15 minutes into the movie, and Trinke is left to take care of their baby, a daughter he names Gertie. Unable to cope with his wife’s death or his new role as parent, Trinke immerses himself in work until his father, Bart (George Carlin), refuses to take care of Gertie any longer. Flustered, abandoned, and completely covered in baby powder, Trinke has a very public nervous breakdown at a news conference.

The movie then jumps forward seven years. Gertie has become an improbably articulate first grader living in New Jersey with her grandfather and dad, who works as a street cleaner and dreams of returning to his old job and the Manhattan good life. A visit to the local video store shakes up their routine when the employee and part-time grad student behind the counter (Liv Tyler) attempts to bring an end to Trinke’s seven year experiment in celibacy. An unexpected job opportunity in New York also forces Trinke to decide between his original life plan and the quieter suburban existence he now shares with his daughter.

Though Affleck should never attempt to cry on film (or say the line “I’m gonna be the best daddy in the world!”), Jersey Girl nevertheless benefits from his non-method approach to acting, which fits in with the film’s down-to-earth style and subject matter. Like all of Smith’s previous movies, Jersey Girl is almost as littered as New Jersey itself with curse words, sex jokes, and an long list of A-list cameos (some amusing if predictable, others genuinely surprising).

Tyler is casually convincing as Smith’s archetypal love interest, the intelligent but laid-back super-babe whose sex appeal and sarcastic wit are mutually reinforcing. Carlin repeatedly saves the day in scenes that might have devolved into very un-Smith-like saccharine and cliché, even rescuing a will-daddy-come-to-the-school-play? scene that would have sunk just about any other movie.

Filmed mostly on location in Paulsboro, N.J., Jersey Girl is an amiable ode to a way of life, a life whose pleasures and tensions Smith explores with disarming honesty and humor. Having based his career thus far on sexual innuendoes and pot references, Smith has produced a surprisingly insightful movie about definitions of family and success in an ever-accelerating world. With an ending that is predictable without being formulaic, Jersey Girl should appeal to a wide spectrum of moviegoers. It’s good, clean fun—penis jokes and all.

—Nathan K. Burstein