The Boy Next Door is a psychological thriller from 2015 starring Jennifer Lopez as Claire Peterson, a high school teacher separated from her husband after she catches him cheating. At the same time, the nephew of her next-door neighbor, Noah, played by Ryan Guzman, moves in to help his wheelchair-bound uncle. Of course, the two end up flirting and eventually having sex (before the school year starts), and then things go bad, as Claire regrets their night together and tries to break it off. Noah becomes jealous and starts to make Claire's life miserable, which is much easier as he is still in high school even though he is 19 years old (which the movie makes clear), and now goes to the same school Claire teaches at and at which her own teenage son, Kevin, played by Ian Nicholson, attends. The movie definitely has a similar vibe to movies like Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful, but it is not exactly an erotic thriller as there was only one sex scene, and even then nothing much was shown (aside from a butt shot from Lopez).
For those who get the blu-ray, the A/V quality is very good, with some great cinematographic visuals and a good lossless audio track. There are only a handful of extras which include a commentary track on the movie by the director Rob Cohen, a short (under 10 minutes) making-of featurette, and a few deleted scenes that total around 10 minutes.
The movie is okay, but not great. It is a smaller-budget movie and definitely does not have an original plot. You can pretty much guess how it is going to play out from the beginning, even though all of the actors did a good job in their roles. The movie does have a good supporting cast including Kristen Chenowith, Hill Harper, and John Corbett. I think it is best described as the kind of movie that you can have on in the background and not miss much of anything if you divert your attention from time-to-time.
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