The Boy Next Door (2015) – A Review
A review of the 2015 thriller The Boy Next Door starring Jennifer Lopez and Ryan Guzman
This movie is too funny!
Jennifer Lopez is an English teacher and mother who’s estranged from her husband. Ryan Guzman moves in next door and then against her better judgement she has a roll in the hay with the kid.
She realizes what a mistake it was, especially when he goes all Fatal Attraction on her. He harasses her at home, at work, threatens her ex, manipulates her son and gets downright violent. How is Jenny From The Block going to stop this nutty kid.
This is such a clichéd, lousy, laughable movie. When it was meant to make me bite my nails with suspense, I was rolling my eyes giggling at this flick. There are no surprises. It’s predictable right down the line. This was promoted as an ‘erotic thriller’. It should have been billed as a ‘laughably bad erotic thriller’. Bring the family folks! This has more laughs than that Ghostbusters remake!
I guess this was some kind of vanity project for Lopez. Or at least the film uses her casting as the big selling point. That was a wise decision since there’s absolutely nothing else worthwhile to sit and watch in this.
Fortunately for Lopez, she didn’t seem to be exert too much energy into this flick. It’s like she’s sleepwalking through this entire movie very disinterested in anything going on. But she’s not alone, everyone gives a bad performance.
Lopez is badly miscast as an English teacher. I don’t buy that this kid would make her swoon by quoting the Iliad. I can’t imagine there is any trace of rational thinking at all in this lady when one phone call to the police would solve her adolescent stalking problem, but she doesn’t do it. They state the kid’s not underage, so call the fuzz and that could put an end to this craziness.
Nah, she wants to protect her job so she just endures more of his silly crap and gets increasingly worried about her and everyone around hers safety. Maybe she likes the harassment.
In fact, I think in the universe this movie takes place in the police only show up when dead bodies appear. They arrive right before the closing credits to tie a nice bow on this ludicrous story, but if you’re not reporting a corpse your not allowed to bother them. “What, he almost killed a student? Well, give him detention or something! We’re too busy to be called for ‘almost kill’ incidents!”
Lopez’s son is the most gullible teen in the school district willing to buy anything his new pal says and just goes along with Guzman’s advice to be a pain in the ass to his dad. Guzman shows off his muscles and acts off the charts insane really quickly. He tries to act threatening, but he doesn’t quite pull it off, no matter what nutty stuff he says and does. So, he goes about doing formulaic uninspired stalking antics hanging up pictures of him and Lopez shagging and writing graffiti on walls.
There’s really not much of a gradual progression of the tension and concern Lopez should be feeling. Guzman pretty much acts off his nut the very next morning after their sex session.
They come up with feeble reasons for her lack of actions, but it’s quite difficult to go along with why she keeps entertaining this nonsense and just doesn’t put an end to it with that one phone call. It’s hard to accept she’s an educated, level-headed woman.
By the time Guzman has got her family chained up in a burning barn I was laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Yep, really bad movie. It might be good for some unintentional laughs. There are bits of dialogue and line readings that will make you snicker. And you get to see that Lopez is still looking sexy. She does look good.
And before you ask – no she does not get naked in this, so don’t go hoping for that to provide any kind of redemption in this flick. If you’re genuinely in the mood for a decent thriller skip this and go watch one of the more effective erotic thrillers that this one tried to be.
If you ask me, this movie misses a bet concerning Lopez and her estranged husband.
The movie establishes that she was doing a "pity me" routine concerning her husband's indiscretion. She was rubbing his face in it over and over again.
Whenever he picks up her kids Kama she mentions it. Whenever they talk on the phone, she mentions it. He asks for change for the vending machine, she mentions it.
If the movie had focused on what would have happened after her own indiscretion, they might have had something. By that I mean, the movie focusing on Lopez going back to her Pity Me routine and Guzman's resentment of being the other guy. Forcing her to choose between forgiving her husband are moving on to another life would have been interesting.
Instead they go with a story about a guy who goes nuts after having sex with Lopez.
Do you think the movie would have benefited from that kind of nuance?
That might have made the movie more interesting. Like you said they play her as the 'good innocent victim' the whole time and I guess it's supposed to be her summoning the strength at the end fighting back to this nut kid and we're meant to cheer. I just couldn't believe how lazy his harassment tactics were. No originality anywhere, just the same nonsense we've seen in other flicks like this.
" I guess it's supposed to be her summoning the strength at the end fighting back to this nut kid and we're meant to cheer."
But that's the thing…
There is no real journey here. It just goes through the motions. Teacher feels vulnerable. Kid takes advantage. Teacher sobers up and spurns kid. Kid feels rejected and strikes back. Teacher defeats kid.
Lopez's character doesn't have any consequences for her actions. While something did happen to the character's sister, she doesn't lose her job, her kids, her husband or her reputation for sleeping with someone she shouldn't have.
At least, Fatal Attraction new that the nightmare should end when Michael Douglas finally confesses his sins to his wife. Which kicks off the final act. Or Michael Mann's Thief, when James Cann realizes he can't have a real life and defeat his enemies. He either has to submit or throw away everything he's built.
I'm willing to bet this film started its life as a movie about a teacher who loses the moral high ground when she sleeps with one of her students. And little by little, she loses her life because of her stalker student keeps pressing the issue until she fesses up to what she did.
What we got was probably something rewritten to within an inch of its life.
Lopez play a morally ambiguous character? Not on her watch.
I wouldn't want to see this film even if Lopez got naked. I think she is a terrible actress and honestly I don't think her singing is that good either. She is one of those celebrities where I tell guys if you really think she's HOT then just buy a damn pin-up calendar than supporting any of her music or movies. The one movie I remember with her that was beyond awful was ENOUGH, where she played this battered woman; the only good movie I saw her in was THE CELL, and it wasn't because of her either, but rather due to Tarsem's visuals and Vincent D'Onofrio as the villain. As for THE BOY NEXT DOOR, you couldn't pay me to watch this goddamn garbage! Good review, though! 🙂
Wait a minute…
You're telling me that Jennifer Lopez's new song devoted to her ass didn't do it for you?
https://youtu.be/nxtIRArhVD4
Fancy That.