Poor JLo: playing a 30-something MILF sexpot in “The Boy Next Door,” she amps up victim-blaming to a whole new level. A high school teacher, she wears skimpy tanks tops both when she jogs and when she leans out the window to leer at young Noah (Ryan Guzman), a high school student who moved in across the street. Noah has those eyes, that chin, those abs, and poor JLo…er, Claire Peterson…, well, she’s having marital problems. Her husband cheats on her with his secretary (“every time he’s in the office,” her friend, played by Kristen Chenoweth, spits at her), and doesn’t pay attention to her, and Noah, well, he doesn’t LOOK like a high school student.
So one rainy night he rescues her, and she can’t help but get those wet clothes off and press their bodies together. You know, for warmth.
Well, turns out that young Noah isn’t satisfied with bumping uglies with Claire, and wants the “happily ever after” with her. Claire, knowing that her job (and ostensibly freedom, though I suspect the screenwriters will make Noah an older 18 rather than an underage student) is more important, will try to break it off, at which time Noah will go all Marky Mark/Ray Liotta on her.
“The Boy Next Door,” judging from the trailers, reads like glorious trash, from JLo’s “I’m not trying to seduce anyone, see? With my off-the shoulder sweater and glasses seductively parting my full, pouty lips” look to her panting as Noah goes down on her.
What will she do? Well, I suppose you’ll have to see the movie to find out, but I suspect there is only one way to stop young Noah’s tragic, violent, brutal onslaught, and that’s to shut him up…forever.
