The Girl Next Door (2004 film)

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The Girl Next Door
Directed by Luke Greenfield
Produced by Charles Gordon
Harry Gittes
Marc Sternberg
Written by David T. Wagner
Brent Goldberg (story and screenplay)
Stuart Blumberg(screenplay)
Starring Emile Hirsch
Elisha Cuthbert
Timothy Olyphant
James Remar
Chris Marquette
Paul Dano
Music by Paul Haslinger
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) April 9, 2004
Running time 109 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Girl Next Door is a 2004 teen film starring Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert.

Contents

[edit] Plot

An ambitious Westport High School senior, Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch), dreams of a career in politics. He plans to attend Georgetown University if he can get a big upcoming scholarship. He is distracted by his new 19 year old neighbor Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) and they begin to have a relationship. He soon discovers, through his porn-addicted friend Eli (Chris Marquette) who shows him a movie, that Danielle is actually a porn star, though she resents and disdains what she does.

Following poor advice from his friend Eli, Matthew goes on a date with Danielle and takes her to a cheap motel room, before they set off Matthew has a daydream in which he sees Cuthbert's character performing fellatio on his father and having a lesbian fling with his mom, he cries out, stunning his family who have been looking over photos. Matthew and Danielle go out and soon arrive at a sleazy motel. Watching his behavior, Danielle guesses that Matthew had seen her on tape and concludes that all he wants to do is "fuck a porn star in a cheap motel room", so she punishes him by offering him the chance to have sex with her, knowing he will wimp out. She berates Matthew saying "I loved the way you looked at me" then storms out. Later Matthew finds out she is leaving for Las Vegas.

Matthew and his friends follow Danielle to Las Vegas and find her performing at an adult movie convention. Once there, they discover that her old porn director/producer boss Kelly (Timothy Olyphant) is unwilling to let her go without trouble. When Matthew convinces Danielle not to rejoin the industry, Kelly only cares that he has lost his best actress and $30,000 in business. Kelly leads him into Hugo's (his rival producer's) house, and reports Matthew for robbery after he convinces him to break in and steal an award. After Matthew manages to escape the house and the police, Eli picks him up and takes him to the awards dinner, where he has to give a speech to win the scholarship.

High on ecstasy he unknowingly took from Kelly, he blows the speech and loses the scholarship. Kelly then gets his money back by stealing the money Matthew raised to get Samnang, the Cambodian genius, to study in the U.S. Matthew finds that he may soon face criminal charges since Kelly has obtained money illegally using a name Matthew mentioned to him. Finding he can't tell his family, Matthew turns to Danielle for help and together with Matthew's friends Eli and Klitz they create a sex ed video at the school prom. After dropping Eli and Klitz off home with their respective girls, Matthew has sex with Danielle in the back of a limo. Danielle then sells the video to the famous pornographer and Kelly's ex-partner Hugo Posh.

She and Matthew make millions from the video. Matthew becomes known as Hugo's "secret" partner as he wishes to remain anonymous. Hugo keeps his word and pays for Samnang to come to the USA, Matthew makes enough money so that he doesn't need to worry about getting a scholarship to go to Georgetown University. He then grants himself "his own scholarship." Matthew's story ends with him getting the girl of his dreams. In an alternate ending Matthew and Danielle are seen at the white house.

[edit] Production

Project began development at the end of 1999 with the first draft of the script delivered in early 2000. Christopher McKenna, who is mentioned in the director's commentary on the DVD, is responsible for the basic story structure and plot of the completed movie yet due to a Writer's Guild arbitration hearing he was stripped of all credit. Furthermore, according to Eli Roth (Hostel, etc.) in an interview on June 5th, 2007 on KITS "LIVE 105" (based in San Francisco, California), Chris McKenna got the story idea and the actual dialogue from conversations Chris had with Eli while Eli was in the editing studio for one of his movies. Eli Roth actually did date "the porn star next door" among others and Chris listened to his stories and turned it into this movie without crediting Eli. David Kartch was previously attached to direct but dropped out and was replaced by Luke Greenfield in 2002. Producers Charles Gordon and Marc Sternberg as well as studio executive Peter Cramer had earlier worked together as the producers of October Sky (1999) which also featured a teenager's attempts at social mobility.

According to the DVD commentary, the character of Eli is based owriter/director Eli Roth, and much of the production staff make direct appearances within the film, as does his mother, assistant, the producer, and the producer's assistants. Additionally, the prom in the film takes place in the cafeteria, much in the same way as the director's[citation needed]. These elements bestow a considerable personal touch on behalf of the production staff on the film. January 11, 2003 at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. All scenes showing topless models were also shot in PG-13 versions. Other locations included South Pasadena, the Masonic Lodge of Pasadena, Long Beach, and Hollywood (including a porn convention sequence shot at the Ren-Mar studios on Cahuenga Boulevard). The first kiss between Matthew and Danielle was shot on March 10, 2003 in the backyard of a house on Capri Drive north of Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. It was the first shot of a night that began at 8pm and ended at 5am. Unusually for the area, temperatures dipped into the high 30s, necessitating that portable gas heaters be brought in for the actors and extras.

Shooting in Agoura Hills was briefly halted to retrieve one of the parrots which was meant to attack Hirsch but instead flew up a nearby tree[citation needed]. As Hirsch was still a minor during production, all of his nude scenes were performed by a stunt double[citation needed]. For a lap dance scene, several pillows were placed between him and the dancer[1]. Despite all this consideration, it is noted that the champagne drunk in the limo by the underage actors near the end of the movie was real[citation needed]. Two extras were injured during shooting at Ren-Mar studios in Hollywood, CA, during the scene where Matt "Horshu" Wiese chases the two sidekicks. Hirsch himself was hurt whilst filming a fight sequence with Timothy Olyphant.

Principal photography ended in late March but two days of pickups, mostly comprising the scenes from the opening montage, were shot in Santa Clarita on April 24 and 25. The first cut of the film ran 120 minutes which was later cut to 106 minutes. There are several rare versions of the one-sheet in which Hirsch's inset character wears a blue rather than red shirt. Versions also exist in which the uncredited Christopher McKenna is given a "Screenplay By" credit alongside Stuart Blumberg and Luke Greenfield. In these, original screenwriters David Wagner and Brent Goldberg receive "Story By" credit. This one-sheet was not released to theaters. Budgeted at $19.9 million, the final project costs were $21 million.

The original release date was intended to be March 5, 2004 but was moved to April 9, 2004, which happened to be Good Friday. As a play on the title of a competing film - The Passion of the Christ - a marketing executive offered the tagline "This Easter, experience a different kind of 'Passion'." This suggestion was quickly shot down by studio brass. Despite security precautions, the film appeared in pirated versions on the internet before its release, primarily due to extensive preview screenings. A high quality DVD transfer was also leaked before the home video release, which also was available for download through file sharing software.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Cameos

  • Actresses Sung-Hi Lee and Karen McDougal are both real-life Playboy models.
  • Beauty and the Geek contestant Lauren Bergfeld appeared in the audience during the auditorium scene.
  • Briana Banks and Jenna Jameson were also originally slated to appear in this film. Briana Banks does make an appearance, however, as the woman shown in the magazine at the beginning of the film.
  • The lips seen in the opening shot of the film are those of Amanda Swisten.
  • David Daskal from "Average Joe: Hawaii" (2004) appears in the beginning of the movie in a group of students and later on as a student in the classroom.
  • Professional wrestler Matt Wiese has a cameo as the boyfriend named mule to one of the porn actresses during the Adult Film Convention sequence.
  • The Cougars lion costume featured in numerous scenes of the film is the same as that featured in Old School (2003), in which Elisha Cuthbert also appeared. In this film it is credited as the "Harrison Cougar."
  • The director makes an appearance in the montage at the film's end as a porn director.
  • The producers are visible in the waiting room of the airport scene.
  • The director's mother appears in the scholarship banquet scene.
  • The producer's assistants appear as Yale college students watching a sex-ed film at the end of the movie. One of Luke Greenfield's assistants also appeared in the cafeteria at the beginning of the film, implying that this fellow high school graduate also ended up going to college with Klitz's character.

[edit] Reception

Opening on 2,148 screens, the film grossed six million on its opening weekend, and took in a total worldwide of over $30 million dollars.[2]

[edit] Critical reaction

The movie received generally negative reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes ranking it 56% Rotten. Criticism came especially from conservative film critic Michael Medved, for its stereotypically glamourous portrayal of porn stars, particularly female porn stars. Roger Ebert described it as a "nasty piece of business", and faulted movie studios for marketing the film as a teen comedy.[3] Medved additionally charged the film with glamourously portraying other degenerate facets of current American culture, particularly American popular culture.

The film was also criticized by some for hyping Cuthbert as playing a porn star, and selling an "Unrated" version with box art simulating a censorship bar over her chest and torso, when no version of the film features any nudity by Cuthbert.

[edit] Awards

The film was nominated for two MTV Movie Awards including Best Kiss and Breakthrough Female performance for Elisha Cuthbert.[4]

[edit] Soundtrack listing

[edit] Origin

In the scene-specific DVD audio commentary for the film Emile Hirsch reveals that when shooting the scene where Elisha Cuthbert forces him to strip, director Luke Greenfield wanted him to shave his chesthair but Hirsch who was 17 at the time refused because, as he himself puts it, "did not wanna shave off my manhood". The plot structure of this film draws many parallels to the 1983 Tom Cruise film, Risky Business.

The film was originally conceived by Steinberg in 2000 as After School Special. This is a far harder version of the story, whereby the cast, who are all porn aficionados of the Apatow style, make a porn film without any moral aspirations. http://sfy.ru/pdf/after_school_special_(2002).pdf Eventually preceding The Girl Next Door (2004 film), After School Special came out in 2003 as National Lampoon's Barely Legal‎.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265208/trivia
  2. ^ The Girl Next Door (2004). boxofficemojo.com (April 9th, 2004). Retrieved on 2006-06-07.
  3. ^ Ebert, Roger (April 9th, 2004). THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. rogerebert.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-07.
  4. ^ Awards for The Girl Next Door. imdb.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-07.

[edit] External links

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