★★★☆☆
Three Stars
In a moment of lonely vulnerability, Claire – played by Jennifer Lopez – makes a mistake which turns her life into a living nightmare. Struggling to forgive her cheating husband and focusing hard on her job as a Classics teacher, Claire allows herself to be momentarily seduced by her new neighbour and pupil, 19 year old Noah, played by Ryan Guzman. It is not difficult to sympathise with Claire when things begin to spiral out of control; who wouldn’t be seduced by Ryan Guzman, after all? Caring, charming, intelligent and certainly no strain on the eye, Noah is unable to accept that Claire has made a mistake. His obsession with her grows stronger as he first hacks her computer and imposes himself not only in her work life at school but also in every moment of her home-life, both day and night.
The film, starting off as the typical bland contemporary American love affair, shifts its mood. A sense of unease seeps into the narrative as Noah, despite his adolescence, begins to show an aggressive and threatening side. Ryan Guzman displays the shifting tempers and emotions of this seemingly besotted young man spectacularly, cleverly managing to manipulate Claire’s husband, her son and even her colleagues at school with his innocent angel-like smile and switching instantaneously into someone menacingly violent. As Noah begins to realise that Claire will not willingly submit to his charms again, he begins to blackmail her, and plots to destroy every aspect of her life so as to take her by force.
Unsurprisingly, the film has attracted a large audience due to the presence of singer, songwriter and model Jennifer Lopez. Despite her unexpectedly convincing, half-decent acting skills, many people (primarily male) seem to want to watch this film in the hope that they will catch her in some various stage of undress. They will be disappointed. The focus on her face within this film does however make it rather difficult to forget the numerous L’Oreal make-up advertisements of her visage which have, throughout the years, haunted the aisles of Boots. Co-actor Guzman displays a lot of promise and is certainly a figure to keep an eye out for in the future.
For a film which I expected to find truly disastrously bad, it is actually rather difficult to stop watching The Boy Next Door. There is something about it that is both mildly gripping and even, to an extent, quite exciting. Indeed, the most disappointing thing about this film is that it is not really that disappointing. None of the actors are outrageously awful, the script is tolerable and, despite the odd glitch in its levels of believability, the characters are easy enough to warm to. Yet the film’s narrative is a repeat of countless past TV dramas and failed thriller movies in which the psychotic ex-lover obsesses to the periphery of murder. Ultimately it is not hard to predict that it will fall, just like all the others of its kind, into the limbo of films which are neither good nor bad enough to be remembered.
