Some guys have all the luck. Take Ryan Guzman for example. He was born with the too-handsome-for-his-own-good-and-too-buff-for-anybody-else's-good gene and, yes, that's a thing , he's got charm and chops, AND he gets to pretend to make love to Jennifer Lopez on screen. That's one lucky guy! And I was lucky enough to see his and her latest film, "The Boy Next Door" R, 1:31 .Lopez plays Claire Peterson, a high school literature teacher with a cheating husband John Corbett and a sweet, bullied teenage son named Kevin Ian Nelson who has severe medical issues. <more> Guzman is Noah, the titular boy who moves in next door. Well, he's not really a boy. He's nearly 20. He moved in with his great uncle because of the old man's health issues and to finish high school after he missed too much class due to the untimely death of his parents. So, Noah is taking care of a sick relative, trying to finish his education, using his talent for fixing things to help his neighbors and befriending Kevin, a kid in desperate need of a buddy. What's not to like? It's no surprise when Claire, still reeling from her husband's adultery and fresh off a bad blind date, sees Noah as just a hunk, a hunk of Burning Love apologies to Elvis . Claire tries to resist Noah's advances, but he won't take "no" for an answer – when he comes on to her, or when he insists on continuing the affair. He gradually becomes more and more demanding and more and more assertive in trying to get what he wants. With Noah being her son's only friend, with thoughts of reconciling with her husband running through her head and with the knowledge that she slept with a student at the school where she teaches an increasingly volatile student , Claire has quite a problem on her hands. After her protestations repeatedly fall on Noah's seemingly deaf ears, and worried about what he'll do next, Claire is forced to confide in her friend Vicky Kristen Chenoweth , who also happens to be the school's assistant principal. And that's when the "fun" REALLY begins."The Boy Next Door" is a throwback to the bad guy movies of the 1980s and the erotic thrillers of the 90s, but that's okay by me. This movie feels fresh. The smart script and solid performances make the situations seem uncomfortably real and we're eventually surprised to find out that Noah has more than one motivation for his actions. Along the way, there's even a moment or two that made me jump in my seat yeah, they got me . The ending, while not entirely unpredictable, is staged with a very effective feeling of suspense. Placed between an especially well done movie poster and music that made me want to sit through the closing credits, I guess you could say that I liked this movie from beginning to end. Although the story isn't really all that original and I feel that it did a disservice to female abuse victims by showing a woman saying "no", then giving in and then blaming herself, those objections are fairly minor compared to the overall quality of this well-executed thriller. Arriving in theaters very early in the year, I'll still say this is my favorite 2015 release
so far. "A-" <less> |