Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Anna Faris, Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis, Kiely Williams, Dana Goodman, Hugh Hefner, Christopher McDonald, Beverly D'Angelo
Written by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13
Runtime 97 minutes
Directed by Fred Wolf
Anna Faris stars as a Playboy bunny who gets thrown out of the mansion and is taken on as a house mother at a college sorority for losers. The House Bunny is what I am dubbing an anti-nouveau college comedy movie (because otherwise I'd just call it a college movie throwback). What is even worse than my clunky genre labeling is that I quite enjoyed it. Whether it's because the credit crunch has driven me mad with worry, or living next to a main road has given my brain far too little oxygen for far too long, I found Anna Faris likable, the flagrant reliance on the slapstick and lowbrow funny, and the running gags endearing rather than annoying.
The opening of the movie, with its portrayal of the Playboy Mansion as an idyll to which Shelley (Faris) is taken after a youth of neglect, is intrinsically funny and sets up the transition to the formulaic college set-up. The collection of girls in the chronically unpopular Zeta sorority house is your standard selection of shy, nerdy, fat and ugly girls just waiting to be smeared with make-up and brought to life. The conclusion is also the predictable "look at the inner goodness in people" moral. So why do I like it? Because there is no attempt to hide this. There is no pussy-footing around, setting elaborate traps to try and be cool, lure the indie kids for a dose of edgy dialogue or even brutally fight its predecessors in an attempt to succeed them to the throne of low-brow comedy. The House Bunny is just a great series of gags loosely strung together with a mushy plot for the ladeez and some hot looking girls for the guyz.
The freeing up of the writers that comes with this cinematic self-knowledge is remarkable, with jokes ranging from your character quirks like Shelley repeating peoples names in a stupid deep voice the first time she meets them "so that she remembers it", to great ditzy one-liners like "The eyes are the nipples of the face" and right over to more subtle touches such as one of the college boys being named Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise's character in Days of Thunder, in case you're pretending like you don't know). The bottom line is that this is not a work of genius, it's not even the greatest comedy of the year, but if you're looking for a laugh this more than matches a majority of its peers in this Apatow-saturated market.