The Girl Next Door

Reviews

Batman

Directed by: Christine Fugate Starring: Stacey Valentine

When the movie started playing the people I had collected together were predictably cracking jokes and having fun with it. But as the movie went on the jokes faded away. The story it tells is engrossing and you find yourself trying to understand the convoluted logic of the porn world. Oral sex, anal sex and DPs (double penetrations) are discussed like someone else might talk about a spreadsheet.

It tells the story of Stacey Baker, a housewife from Oklahoma. Her abusive husband talked her into sending a nude picture of her into a men's magazine for a contest. She won and was whisked off for a photo shoot. It gave her the courage to leave her husband and she went to Hollywood to pursue a career in adult movies as Stacey Valentine.

We see several scenes of her working on set, with cameras strategically placed to obscure the action. Stacey is clearly very comfortable at work. She is unfazed by the crews surrounding her, by the demands of the sex, or really by anything. She is very much in control here and that obviously gives her pleasure.

The flip side is her home life. She is dating Julian, who also works in the business. Here she is clearly not in control and subsequently much less comfortable. She has real difficulty trusting him or anyone for that matter. She has essentially become two people, one a successful starlet, the other a scared woman far from home. Unsurprisingly she focuses on the starlet.

This leads to plastic surgery. Here we have the films most disturbing moments. Scenes of liposuction where huge needles are rammed around under skin to remove fat are unnerving to say the least. Having to watch her breast implants replaced with smaller ones is equally unsettling. Somebody might want to consider a horror film involving plastic surgery because this was much harder to watch than any gore I've seen before in a film. Because this is a documentary you can't tell yourself that it isn't real to make watching it any easier. A later scene involving injecting her own fat into her lips actually manages to top the first scene for being disturbing.

The movie's real fascination lies in how Stacey's view of the world helps to protect her from the business she is in. Early on she says, "If I get horny, I go to work. If I need affection, I have my cats." She and Julian have to get around the thorny issue their business creates for their relationship. How can they develop trust when the very nature of their work demands they have sex with other people? They discuss the idea that they would rather see the other have sex with someone else than see them holding hands with someone else. They have somehow come to a point where holding hands is more meaningful and emotional than having sex. The relationship seems doomed and predictably falls apart.

The business clearly wears on her. She talks about how no one wants to touch her except to have sex. Her self image is taking a beating. When she fails to win an award at the Adult Video News convention despite being nominated for five awards, she is heartbroken. All of this sex in her life and no she gets no appreciation. It becomes obvious that she is becoming desperate for something to prop up her ego.

Emotionally she hits bottom at the Cannes Film Festival. Nominated for a Hot D'or award she heads to France. Fans just want to touch her. The press asks tough questions. Finally she agrees to have sex with a rich fan for money. Watching her try and rationalize it to the camera is painful. At the awards ceremony she almost loses control when she wins. This tiny bit of recognition hits her like a thunderbolt. After that things seem to improve as she starts moving towards leaving the business altogether.

A comparison to Boogie Nights is inevitable due to their similar subject matter. I was rather underwhelmed by that film. It seemed to be stating the obvious that this industry was bad for people. It never carried the emotional weight needed to make it seem real. I actually liked The Girl Next Door better than Boogie Nights because it is real and subsequently brings considerable emotional weight to bear.

The film makers are nearly invisible here only being heard occasionally to clarify the situation. Stacey's face plainly shows her pain and confusion no matter how hard she tries to hide it. The film counterbalances the porn industry nicely by letting us meet Stacey's mother, stepfather and best friend. These people exist in normal life and struggle to understand her world. Their own ignorance of it shields them from the severity of her problems. When they speak you realize her life is the polar opposite of a typical person's life. Her mother just wants her to meet someone who will love her and care for her. Someone who will give her the appreciation and respect she needs. At the same time Stacey is trying to find the same thing, but through her work where it clearly is nowhere to be found.

If you get the chance to see this movie you should. The director treats her subject material seriously and it makes for a movie that almost demands discussion afterwards. It just isn't possible to watch this movie and not have something to say about it. There is a lot to laugh at and a lot to be disturbed by in the same movie. If you don't find this thought provoking you are probably brain dead.

Bryan

I've seen a few adult movies in my time, and I don't have any illusions about the nature of the industry that spawns them. Even so, Girl Next Door was definitely thought-provoking, and shone a harsh light on that industry.

The themes that emerge from this documentary about Stacy Baker's life are those of the low self-esteem and alienation that accompany work in the adult film industry. I didn't feel that this was because of a bias on the part of the filmmaker; I felt that it came naturally from the events depicted in the film. It's always hard to tell, though, when you don't know what's happening when the camera is not rolling. There were some mysterious details included that I would have liked explained. For example, who was J. J., the fellow who was shot several times looking on wistfully as Stacy performed a scene? Other areas, like Stacy's childhood and her post-adult-film relationship with her childhood friends, were touched on lightly but perhaps not explored fully. Overall, though, the coverage that is provided of her everyday life is very effective.

If you're interested in the process of filming scenes for an adult movie, you'll get quite at bit of that in the first hour or so. It was amazing to see the actors faking the throes of passion, only to suddenly stop on a dime because of ants or bad lighting or just plain being fed up with the work.

Viewers of this film will probably see pieces of themselves or people they know in Stacy and the people around her. An ex-girlfriend of mine couldn't sleep in a bed if the covers were tucked under the mattress; the scene where Stacy fusses with her hotel bed's blankets was a familiar one.

There are several disturbing plastic surgery scenes which are not for the faint of heart. I personally abhor fake lips, and had trouble watching the procedure where Stacy has her lips augmented. I thought that the inclusion of cheesy, 1920's "to be pretty is everything" music (think the last song on Annie Lennox's _Diva_) in the soundtrack over that scene was a bit heavy-handed. I did, if I'm not mistaken, hear a bit of Jill Sobule at one point during the film, so I'll forgive it.