Film Reviews

The House Bunny

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Anna Faris
• Details: US / 97mins (12A).

Who likes short shorts? Anna Faris likes short shorts. Faris plays the super nice but utterly brainless Shelley, a Playboy bunny who is kicked out of the mansion when she turns the ripe old age of 27 - that's 59 in bunny years. Homeless, Shelley moves into a sorority house, in danger of being closed down due to lack of pledges, and teaches the socially inept students a thing or two about how to attract boys. However, there's a rival sorority house hell bent on finishing off Shelley's girls.

A Revenge Of The Nerds for ditsy blondes, The House Bunny would have been passable if there was one decent gag, but there isn't and it isn't. The lively Faris (taking on a bit of Goldie Hawn and Marilyn Monroe here) is, like Emma Stone, better than the lines she's given and fights the script to add more to her one-dimensional character, but it's a bout she loses. Of course, there's the inevitable message at the end that belies what has gone before, but the age group The House Bunny is pitched at will have had 96 minutes of 'dressing like a tart and babbling like an idiot is the only way boys will notice you' before that. Which will last longer in the memory? Mmm. But is it smarter than this? Is it actually a comment on how women are forced by society to be this impossible male fantasy (Faris' wobbling on those nose-bleed stilettos would suggest so) or am I reading too much into it? It wouldn't be the first time.

Review by Gavin Burke