The House Bunny

That’s no coincidence, however, because Blonde
screenwriters Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz penned this Faris
vehicle, in which the actress’ character, Shelley Darlingson, is a
former orphan who now calls the Playboy Mansion her permanent home. As
one of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner’s favorite bunnies, the
cheerfully ditzy Shelley is looking forward to her 27th birthday, and
maybe even a surprise gift from Hef: “Being a centerfold is the
highest, most prestigious honor there is. It says, ‘I’m naked in the
middle of a magazine: Unfold me.’”  

Yet Shelley gets mysteriously
pink-slipped after her party, as one mansion employee comforts her with
the wisdom that “27 is 59 in bunny years.” (For longtime fans of
Hefner, who chips in some funny moments during his bathrobe-clad
cameos, they shouldn’t worry about this sudden burst of ageism, as a
later plot twist will reveal.) Orphaned again, the bunny gets the
harebrained idea to become a house mother to the seven students of Zeta
Alpha Zeta, a university’s misfit sorority in danger of losing its
charter—and who would want to pledge alongside these dowdy nerdettes?
Shelley’s such a spark plug, however, with pledge-luring techniques
such as an Aztec-themed party with virgin sacrifices (she wanted to
choreograph that one at Hef’s place, but she couldn’t find any
virgins), that the Zetas become more popular than a rival sorority of
snobs. Along the way Shelley also meets potential love interest Oliver
(Colin Hanks, Tom’s son), an unassuming chap who runs a nearby senior
center, and he’s a long way from the lunkhead jocks Shelley knew from
her mansion days. 

Hare apparent: Anna Faris as The House Bunny.

The screenwriters’ spoof of sexual
politics from the female perspective has been financed by Adam
Sandler’s Happy Madison production arm, purveyors of guy-oriented slob
comedies, yet the collision of such opposites isn’t as jarring as one
would expect. Sure, Faris’ Shelley must deliver the most obvious of
double-entendres with utter earnestness (such as a Breathalyzer bit
that lands her in the pokey) yet the script often uses cleverness to
overcome its formulaic moves. Shelley’s
female-empowerment-through-makeup-accessories mantra (she tells her
sisterhood to “skimpify” their wardrobe) results in the usual montage
wherein the frumps become dazzlers, which isn’t much of a problem for
cutie-pie actresses like Emma Stone, Rumer Willis (yep, Bruce’s
daughter with Demi Moore) and American Idol’s Katharine McPhee
(as a pregnant hippie, no less)—and yet most of the lads in the movie
come across as male fantasists lost in their own shallow horniness. And
Shelley’s advice to the Zeta ladies that “boys want what other boys
want” and “boys don’t like girls that are smart” might have worked on
the Neanderthals she entertained at the mansion, yet nice-guy Oliver
doesn’t fall for such come-ons.

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Executive producer Sandler didn’t get a
woman to helm this project, yet director Fred Wolf keeps this daffy
affair moving at a bouncy pace, with an accent on the hypercolored
production designs created by Missy Stewart. Wolf also allows certain
actresses playing the Zetas to ham it up in the early scenes when their
characters are at their most deadpan drab, especially Kat Dennings (Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist)
as the much-pierced Mona and Dana Goodman as the etiquette-challenged
farm girl Carrie Mae, whose pickup lines at a barroom are riotously
lowbrow. Yet Faris is the whole show here, as she gets laughs even from
the silliest running gags (her Linda Blair-Exorcist imitation
when Shelley imprints people’s names to memory is a highlight). Her
endearing sweetheart performance demonstrates that she’s pretty smart
about playing dumb.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has issued its DVD version of The House Bunny
in a letterboxed format (2.40:1 ratio) with a smattering of extras that
include a three-minute music video for co-star McPhee’s rendition of
the old Waitresses tune “I Know What Boys Like” (actually, one of the
film’s earlier titles) and nine minutes’ worth of 10 deleted scenes,
most of them forgettable, although the moviemakers should have left in
a longer take dealing with mama-to-be McPhee’s climactic delivery.
Twelve brief vignettes, totaling 53 minutes, offer behind-the-scenes
jibber-jabber with the cast and crew, with the best moments featuring
ageless satyr Hefner as he rests on his giant bed while snacking on
pints of strawberry ice cream.