The House Bunny

"They're kicking me out?"
"Maybe it's because of your age."
"But I'm 27."
"But that's 59 in Bunny Years."

Shelley (Faris) has a good life.  She lives in a beautiful mansion, gets breakfast in bed, and gets to put everything on the "mansion tab."  Shelley is a playboy bunny

I'm an expert at parties and boys! I'm a bunny! Men write to me from prison, sometimes even in their own blood, which I think is theirs, but I don't know, I'm really nervous because I really want to help.

A-a bunny? You mean, like, centerfold?
Oh, bless your heart, no, just a few pictorials, like "Girls from the Midwest" and "Girls with GEDs."

But everything changes after her 27th birthday.  A letter with breakfast tells her to get out.  She misses life at the mansion, but finds a way to cope when she walks onto a college campus and sees the sorority houses.  Each sorority has a house mother who lives with them... like a mini Playboy Mansion.  The only house without a house mother is Zeta... the sorority in danger of losing its charter because no one wants to join.

There are 7 girls in the sorority: the de facto leader Natalie (Stone) who is brilliant but can't talk to boys, Mona (Dennings) the individual who hates superficiality, Harmony (McPhee) the pregnant hippie, Joanne (Willis) hides behind her body brace, Carrie Mae (Goodman) the overly aggressive hillbilly, and Lilly (Williams) who communicates via text messages.  Can Shelley helps the girls find confidence and new members?


Cute and funny...  Anna Faris proves female comedians can carry a comedy film.  She owns every scene in this film.  Making Shelley adorable and funny and still believable.  She is incredibly dumb (filling the typical "dumb blonde" role), but there are only a few moments where you want to smack some sense into her.  The rest of the Zeta's are funny, but only Emma Stone stands her own when Faris is on screen.

The rest of the cast just can't keep up.  Colin Hanks' Oliver seems misplaced or miscast or something.  Maybe it's just the character.... Christopher McDonald as the Dean and Beverly d'Angelo as Mrs. Hagstrom (the snotty House Mother) are underused.  Both could be convincing villains (McDonald has been a villain many times), but they barely appear on screen... and the other character who provides conflict is never explored as a character and disappears early.  Better / more convincing villains could only help the film.

Funny... but not incredible.

The House Bunny (2008) 97 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for sex-related humor, partial nudity and brief strong language
Director: Fred Wolf
Starring: Anna Faris as Shelley
Colin Hanks as Oliver
Emma Stone as Natalie
Kat Dennings as Mona
Katharine McPhee as Harmony
Rumer Willis as Joanne
Kiely Williams as Lilly
Dana Goodman as Carrie Mae