By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Insmonia strikes again at 3:23 AM so thus I am watching a movie that I shall review. I wanted to see this in the movies with my best friend, but unfortunately by the time we were able to get together it was out of the theaters by our house. I had heard terrible reviews so I was hoping for a movie that was so-bad-its-good, but instead I got something else entirely.
The Boy Next Door begins during summer vacation. Teacher, Claire Peterson (Jennifer Lopez) is having a difficult time as she realizes her husband Garrett (John Corbett) had an ongoing affair with a coworker in San Francisco. Her teenage son Kevin (Ian Nelson) keeps hoping that his parents will get back together. Claire tries to give Garret another chance and invites him over for Garrett’s birthday. Things are going well and they even begin planning a camping trip until Garrett’s slips up and reveals he’s off to The Golden Gate city again. Though he swears it’s just business, Claire has difficulty trusting.
Claire keeps strong in front of her son and tells him to go with his father and have fun, but she ends up crying in the bathroom. The next day as Claire was about to bring Kevin to the allergist, as he has to carry an EpiPen with him, the garage door opener breaks. Noah (Ryan Guzman) a young man who moved in next door to help his uncle Mr. Sanborn (Jack Wallace), assists and instantly takes a liking to the family.
Noah brings Kevin to the store to get the proper hardware to fix the garage door. There Kevin sees a girl he has a crush on. Noah and encourages him to talk to the girl at the counter he likes. He even tells Claire when some jerks with skateboards bully Kevin. Claire is so appreciative she invites the senior highschool student, Noah to dinner where her best friend and Vice Principal of the school Vicki (Kristin Chenoweth) will be.
Vicki (Kristin Chenoweth) senses something is wrong with Noah and doesn’t want Claire to return to Garrett. Claire on the other hand becomes attracted to Noah, but as he’s much younger push her feelings down. While Kevin is camping with Garret, Vicki attempts to set Claire up with a blind date that goes downhill very quickly as the man is a misogynistic douche-bag who insults her profession and checks out a large breasted woman right in front of her.
In the morning, Claire immediately regrets it and takes full responsibility. She attempts to explain her vulnerability and how Noah’s sweetness made her lose her senses. He gets angry and punches the wall. Shocked by his anger, she keeps composure and even assists him in cleaning his wound.
That night, Kevin returns with Garrett who convinces Claire to give him another chance. Noah doesn’t take this well, and hacks into Claire’s computer to send a request to her principal so that he can join the class.
She lets that slide and even allows Noah to continue hanging out with Kevin. Unbeknownst to her, Noah begins to manipulate her son into hating Garrett. He reminds Kevin of his father’s infidelity, running out and puts it in his head that he’s being bribed.
He encourages Kevin to take up boxing and when he has an allergic reaction, Noah’s saves his life.
Noah pushes things even further and sends flowers to Claire. She asks him to start over, and he takes it the wrong way.
Soon, Noah descends further into madness when Garrett crashes on the couch and Noah spies believing the duo had sex. The next day Noah calls Claire a whore and Kevin walks out wondering what happened. She tries to tell Kevin to stay away from him, but he doesn’t listen thinking that Noah is his only true friend.
He goes as far as to beat the kid who went after Kevin to an inch of his life. Noah ends up getting expelled but it doesn’t stop him from attacking Claire at the spring fling in the boy’s bathroom. He does everything he can to ruin her life including posting pictures of the two of them having sex throughout her classroom. He threatens to expose her to Kevin and Garrett unless she agrees to be with him.
Claire loses control and is scared to death about losing her job, losing her son and even losing her life. She discovers deep dark secrets about Noah that just reaffirms his level of insanity and her level of fear.
Jennifer Lopez is an underrated great actress. She was wonderful in Enough (2002) and even the movies she was in that were dreadful were certainly not due to her performance. She always gives 110%. The perfect role for her is when she is allowed to be a tough kick-ass woman. I would love to see her as Wonder Woman. I hear so many complaints about her and though I despise this term down to my very core, I have to use it – those people are haters.
Lopez is trashed by the media and despised by people for the dumbest reasons. Her road to success from being a In Living Color to the major superstar in both acting and singing, makes a lot of people angry (ahem jealous). I think some of this comes from sexism and some of it comes from racism. She worked hard to get where she is and has no issue letting the world know, and she shouldn’t. She should have an ego. She should give herself pats on the back and applaud her accomplishment. Men do it all the time and they gain more popularity, but when a woman recognizes her own worth, she’s called every name in the book.
Self-esteem and even arrogance is generally appreciated. Take Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, Mick Jagger, George Clooney and Johnny Depp, they are all idolized and gained more fans, more cash and more compliments because of their arrogance.
Jennifer Lopez who is far more talented than most on that list gets bullied from the media because of it. She’s a smart, multifaceted and talented woman who deserves her place in Hollywood. I absolutely love her. Don’t get me wrong, that doensn’t mean I think every song she has done is phenomenal but overall she’s amazing and deserves all the praise she gets.
As for this film, it’s awesome. At times it reminded me of Unlawful Entry (1992) with Ray Liotta, Madeleine Stowe and Kurt Russell which is a great movie in its own right, but this was far more intense. I anticipated a Lifetime style overdone ridiculously stupid movie, but instead the movie was nearly perfect.
The only gripe I have is that Kevin finds out way too late what a douche Noah is and doesn’t even learn one of the worst betrayals that he committed.
Otherwise, the acting is fantastic, the pace is incredible. I can’t believe how quickly it went by. The writing is actually a lot more intellectual than I assumed and much more than the trailer showed. Even the “I love your mother’s cookies” line was not nearly as blatant or funny as presented in the commercial. This would have been so much more successful if properly advertised. So if you haven’t figured it out yet, I highly recommend this thriller.
A quick thing to note is that I didn’t notice any CGI whatsoever which was really refreshing. I wasn’t taken out of the movie for a moment. In one scene a building is on fire, and it looks 100% real. I’m not sure if it was really fire or the best CGI I’ve seen, but either way kudos.
Scared Stiff Reviews: 8.5/10
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