The Boy Next Door (2015)

This version of Fatal Attraction with a rather unbelievable manchild (the usual guy in his mid-twenties playing a high-schooler) features a first act that tries really hard to make you sympathize with the main character. Unfortunately, J-Lo in the role of a poor idealistic underdog who has to spend her nights alone and unloved works just as you could imagine, and worse. Someone this beautiful is always a hard sell in that role when production doesn't do anything to tone down her allure dressing her down or at least not making her live a life well above the means of the profession she is supposed to play. What makes her utterly unlikeable though, is the way her character was written, from the first act, where her lines are full of cringe. When they try to make her look intellectual talking Homer or defending the value of studying classics because J.K.Rowling made a lot of money, they only manage to make her sound almost more stupid than the cardboard cutout caricatures of men she meets, like the dude who'd berate her job for no reason.

The usual train wreck of bad character choices has some fun value, especially when the disturbed twentynager really cranks up the crazy, which was already plain to see from the first moment, almost - at least how it'd lead to a completely inappropriate situation. At the same time, the son character is just painful to watch, and the only marginally decent characters are the Kristin Chenoweth (here looking a bit like like 99 cent version of Cameron Diaz, or perhaps Cameron Diaz's mom) as the spirited friend and the melon headed John Corbett as a solid good guy who despite his flaws is all right.

Watch if for some laughs, but they are not aplenty, and the moral compass and tone are all over the place (after all, stalking is a heavy theme and a couple moments are midly disturbing to watch). The most memorable part of the movie is probably Jennifer Lopez's shrill scream when she finds a body in a room: it kinda reaches Howard Dean levels of epicness.

Sammo ★