The Girl Next Door

I came away shaking after watching the film, The Girl Next Door, based upon the book of the same
name by Jack Ketchum.

To be honest, my first impression was not a good one, but I've learned to sit and think on some
things and this film is something you must think about. The book by Ketchum is based on a true
story about Sylvia Likens who was beaten, tortured and finally murdered by Gertrude Baniszewski,
her children and some neighborhood children.

Meg and Susan come to live with Ruth, a distant aunt who is also an alcoholic, chain smokes and
encourages neighborhood children to drink beer. She takes the lead of neighborhood children, by
acting as an adult friend.

Ruth (played by Blanche Barker) quickly escalates from verbal assaults to physical, aided by her
three sons and other neighborhood children. Eventually, we find Megan tied up in the basement
bomb shelter, stripped, humiliated, verbally and physically assaulted and raped by the kids, all under the watchful gaze of Ruth who encourages the children and continues to tell them how dirty Megan is.

The story is one too common in human history, of others taking part in abuse. Sylvia's abuse became a neighborhood game and the film doesn't explore the reasons for the abuse or why others would participate. Instead, we are given the graphic extremes and a neighborhood boy witnessing the events, but he (for some reason) is unable to say anything about them.

Though I would not go so far as to say that it's the kind of film I wish I could bleach from my brain as the New York Times review did; there is a filth one is left with after watching it. The viewer has a front row seat to torture committed in the average American home but finds no reasoning behind it. And perhaps that is the point of this adaptation: that such vile acts can occur right under our noses without our knowledge. If that is the point, it's been done in film too often.

The last line in the film was inappropriate, as the adult David narrates that Megan says, "It's the last acts that matter." That sounds like a diminishment of what her life in its entirety meant and as if there was some meaning given her death through that line.

I would not encourage everyone to watch the film. There are some things better left alone and this may be one of them. Though the film could have made a strong statement about human psychology, it failed. The book may be better.

30/12/07

---