Every once in a while, decent writing, fresh-faced new actors, and a story ripped off an older movie come together in ways that make us want to wet our panties and jump up and down giggling. The Girl Next Door exemplifies this phenomenon. Unfortunately lumped into the “Teen Sex Comedy” category, The Girl Next Door , while being about both teenagers and sex, does not objectify its subject matter as do many others of its genre. It doesn't endlessly harp on penis size, or ogle the bouncing boobies of jogging girls, or, thank the lord, involve the insertion of any organ into any baked good. To the contrary, this film comes off as confident and very uplifting. Though it's essentially Risky Business , with porn replacing prostitution as the bad-girl occupation, The Girl Next Door nonetheless manages to seem smart and original, thanks in part to a convincing script written by Stuart Blumberg, David T. Wagner and Brent Goldberg (creators of Van Wilder ).

Emile Hirsche seamlessly portrays Matthew, the bored high school senior with dreams of Georgetown, whose attentions are turned from his studies in a scene that amazingly does not get the “I've seen this 12 times before” groan from the audience. Unbelievably gorgeous Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) is discovered to occupy the room right across the fence (imagine!) and, of course, strips down exposing a very attractive spinal column. They end up dating, of course, and Danielle involves him in all sorts of fun and educational activities which include running naked through residential streets. When Danielle's dirty past catches up with them, in the form of sleazily attractive ex-lover/director Kelly (scene-stealing Timothy Olyphant, in the Joe Pantiliano role from Risky Business), Matthew must go to great lengths to save her from her previous errors in judgment regarding career choice.

Some parts of this movie are relatively implausible, unfortunately. The dubious romance between an experienced porn star and a high school student is the most glaringly obvious. Also, Danielle is obviously choosing between two “modes” throughout the film – dirty, icky, degraded porn star and meaningful-emotions-having-real person. However, even when in “real person” mode, Danielle is still a 15-year-old boy's wet dream, though Elisha's heartfelt and realistic potrayal excuse the writing of the character.

Cuthbert and Hirsch give this cute and different romance emotional spark and humor that could almost be called touching, while peripheral characters like Kelly and Matthew's friends Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano) serve up laugh-out-loud lines such as “If you don't fuck her, I'll kill myself.”

Altogether, a very feel-good film rife with the sort of sophisticated plot twists and clever cinematography one doesn't expect from teen comedies. Highly recommended.

Four out of five stars.

Reviewed by Emily Eaton