Girl Next Door, The

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Builds up enough good will during its successful first half that we're willing to forgive some of the strange and disappointing convolutions the plot takes us through during the final 45 minutes.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Once in a very long while, a truly memorable romantic teen comedy comes along. The Girl Next Door is one.

USA Today Mike Clark

A mildly satirical but essentially sweet, benign comedy.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An exceptionally well-written script, full of unexpected turns and clever reversals, and a trio of deft actors in the principal roles.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

An entertaining affair whose wild-card creativity never ceases to surprise.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Sharp, vivacious comedy.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Best of all, in this movie about high school boys, the high school boys sound and look quite authentic (Paul Dano and Chris Marquette are outstanding in this regard), not watered down as would be the norm.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

"Risky Business" had a great opening act and then descended into contrivances. This genial cardboard knockoff is contrived from the start but gets better as it goes along.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

A pleasant surprise. It's not without its problems, but it's character-driven, funny and, if not dark, then at least a pleasant shade of gray -- with tremendous performances by Hirsch and Olyphant.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The mainstream prominence of pornography gets a shove forward with the teen comedy, The Girl Next Door, an improbably-not-terrible teen sex comedy.

Premiere Laine Ewen

The film's lack of focus leaves most, if not all, of the characters just a hair less developed than they should have been; the plot holes just a bit more conspicuous than they might have been; and the ending just a touch less poignant than it could have been.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Though shamelessly derivative and amoral, The Girl Next Door is nevertheless funnier and smarter than most of the pathetic dreck aimed at the nation's teens.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

In the end it's not the tricks that elevate this movie. It's the acting.

Variety Joe Leydon

A tickle-and-tease teen sex comedy that plays like a late-night channel-surf through soft-core sitcoms, "American Pie" wannabes and '80s Brat Pack romances.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It sputters whenever it has to move the story along, and it too often forgets to pay attention to Cuthbert; it makes a point about the mistake of treating women as sex objects, but it's perfectly content to use her as a plot device for the second and third acts.

Film Threat Clint Morris

It's got everything the genre calls for – boppy music, cute boys, cute girls, lots of sexual lingo, and most importantly, laughs.

Slate David Edelstein

The film is seamlessly made, its mood balanced dreamily between sexy-funny and sexy-scary.

Empire Scott Russon

It has managed, admirably, to strike a balance between the wholesome 'school nerd blossoms' fairy tale and the gross-out comedy that is now a teen movie standard.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Until Hollywood stops being a boys club, and America graduates beyond short pants and its embarrassingly pubescent attitudes toward sex, I suppose one can only hope that all male adolescent fantasies will play as goofily sweet as this one.

TV Guide Ethan Alter

The film has a certain easygoing charm, choppiness notwithstanding, and delivers several big laughs; if leads Cuthbert and Hirsch were as charismatic as scene-stealing supporting players Olyphant and Marquette, it might have joined the ranks of memorable teen comedies.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Olyphant steals the show as a cheeky porn producer. The rest is gimmicky and predictable, except for a clever surprise near the end.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Begins with the same deathless question that has bedeviled generations of teenagers: how to fill the space allotted to graduating seniors for memories and shout-outs at the back of their yearbook?

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What is disturbing and frankly distasteful about The Girl Next Door is how slick and shameless it is in its eagerness to blur boundaries, to squeeze as much transgressive material as it can into a nominally bland and innocent form, to serve up a benign, sanitized and exquisitely titillating portrait of the world of pornography in the cozy sheep's clothing of a teenage movie.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Lost the friskiness and wildness and charm the movie might have had.

Boston Globe Janice Page

Comes up short when things get serious, resorting to cliches and a whole lot of hooey about "moral fiber."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The Girl Next Door is to "Risky Business" what near-beer is to beer. If you're desperate for a mild buzz, you might make it do.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Offers a view of pornography that is nonjudgmental, even celebratory, but at the same time its premise -- that Danielle must be rescued from the shame and degradation of her old job -- suggests a more traditional, disapproving point of view. Instead of addressing this contradiction, the movie is happy to wallow in it, which would be fine if it had any real pleasure to offer.

Washington Post Mark Jenkins

Nothing in this film makes any sense, and Stuart Blumberg, David T. Wagner and Brent Goldberg's script merely gets more preposterous as it elaborates on its implausible premise.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This comedy is an ill-fated attempt to remake "Risky Business" (1983) for the 21st century, complete with a wind-chimey score, the hero posing in his underpants, and a cynical happy ending.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Director Luke Greenfield, the auteur behind "The Animal," starring Rob Schneider, wants to pass off this limp-dick farce as social satire. Ha!

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Favors giggly juvenile humor over inspired satire and ends up not with a moral, but a moral vacuum.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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?