The Girl Next Door (2004) – DVD Review

Film:
DVD:

Written by Stuart Blumberg, David Wagner, and Brent Goldberg
Directed by Luke Greenfield
Starring Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Marquette, and Paul Dano

Features:

• 16 uncensored deleted/extended scenes
• Unrated gag reel
• Featurettes: “A Look Next Door” and “The Eli XXXperience”
• Photo gallery
• Scene specific audio commentary with actors Cuthbert and Hirsch

Released by: Fox.
Rating: Unrated (obviously, you might not want your kids to watch it, but it’s better than your mom finding your porn collection)
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: At least rent it, adolescent (-minded) boys will want to own

[ad#longpost]Matthew Kidman (Hirsch) is on his way to a full-ride scholarship and a successful political career when his world is turned upside down. The new neighbor that moves in next door is a beautiful young woman named Danielle (Cuthbert). They go out on a couple of dates and things are really starting to look good for their relationship when his good friend Eli (Marquette) discovers that she is a former porn star. After he discovers that little bit of information, his life spirals out of his control as he finds himself dealing with pornographers and directors while he both tries to get his life back on track and keep the girl next door.

Believe it or not, this is a romantic comedy. I want to state something clearly: the unrated version of this movie doesn’t add any more flesh to the film, instead the language is a little more harsh and the situations are a little more risque, but other than that, there’s not any more nudity than the “R” rated version. It’s pretty much the same movie. Every male who wanted to see this movie when it came out on the Big Screen wanted to see it because of Cuthbert. I think we can all agree on that point, right? These are the people who are going to be the most disappointed by the fact I just stated about the unrated version. Cuthbert is perfect in her role. Not only that it’s believable that she’s a former pornstar, but it’s believable that she could fall for Hirsch. He is perfect in his role as well. He plays it with just enough charm to be believable, but he’s just enough of a tightwad to make it believable that his world could be rocked with this situation.

The DVD is pretty well done. The extended and/or deleted scenes are funny and actually add a little bit to the enjoyment of this movie. Yes, you can see why they were cut, but they are actually fun to watch. The featurette “A Look Next Door” is pretty common stuff. It’s peppered with interviews with the cast and crew and there is a bit of ego stroking going on, but it’s okay. The other featurette, “The Eli XXXperience,” is absolutely hilarious. A camera crew follows Marquette around a porn convention while he acts like a director. It really feels like he was given free reign to just do whatever he wanted to. He puts some “volunteers” in situations that are downright hilarious. It shouldn’t be missed.

There is a commentary track, but it’s not feature-length. Hirsch and Cuthbert talk about selected scenes from the film, but it is just not exciting at all. It’s definitely not a reason to buy this DVD. A bit that is feature-length, though, is the trivia track. It works like VH1’s Pop-Up Video. Randomly throughout the movie, you get little bubbles of information that provide you with information about life in high school and life in the porn industry. Ironically, I noticed very little difference between these two sets of trivia bubbles. You figure it out.

The gag reel is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a while, which is refreshing. And, unfortunately, that pretty much does it for the DVD. Yeah, there’s a photo gallery and some other stuff, but nothing that makes this DVD stand out as one that you must put on your shelf because of it. So, I say go out and at least rent it if you haven’t seen it. Hell, even some of our female readers might actually like this movie, even considering that it is specifically marketed toward teenage boys (of all ages).

• Click here to buy it from Amazon.