Since her breakout role as Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie back in 2000, Anna Faris has become a reliable comedic actress. She had a recurring role as Erica during the final season of Friends, and has appeared in nearly a dozen film comedies, usually as a ditzy blonde, a vain prima donna (she was a scene-stealer in Lost in Translation), or a combination thereof. While the movies themselves aren’t always worth watching, Faris always gives an outstanding performance.
In many ways, Faris reminds me of a young Goldie Hawn as others have said. Like Hawn, Faris has a giggly innocence about her, but she can be sexy or funny as well. In the case of The House Bunny, Faris proves she can be funny and sexy at the same time. She is gorgeous but unafraid to male herself look ridiculous in the name of a funny joke.
The House Bunny is a comedy from the writers of Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You that benefits immeasurably from Faris’ efforts. (She served as one of the film’s executive producers, too.) It was directed by Fred Wolf, who made this year’s Strange Wilderness, and produced by Adam Sandler’s production company.
This film centers around Hugh Hefner’s favorite playboy bunny (Hef does have a cameo) named Shelley (Anna Faris). The morning after her 27th birthday party, Shelley is given her eviction notice by Hef. 27 is “59 in bunny years,” she’s informed. Despondent, Shelley wanders the streets of Los Angeles, and overhears four college-age girls talking about a party and follows them to the house. “Wow, it looks like a mini-Playboy mansion,” she says to herself, and goes inside to ask if she can live there. Remember, this is a movie. She’s told she has to be enrolled as a student to live there, but as luck would have it, the house mothers of all the sororities are having a meeting, and she finds out they get to live in their own mini-mansions too. “Try Zeta,” one of them whispers, in a moment of compassion. Soon enough, the blonde-but-aging sexpot is hooking up with a group of misfit girls who value brains more than sex appeal. As it turns out, this sorority is going to lose their charter if they can’t get more members. And who wants to join a group as motley as this? It’s makeover time, with Shelly giving them lessons in how to strut their stuff.
Screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith have crafted a script that makes fun of a character with artificial breasts and not to many book smarts without going for obvious bathroom humor all the time. The sorority girls make little remarks at Shelley’s expense that don’t insult the viewer’s intelligence or their own. While Shelley isn’t very book smart, it’s obvious she has a big heart, which makes her a sympathetic character.
We feel for Shelley when she meets the manager of a retirement home by the name of Oliver (Colin Hanks), who takes a shine to her. When she pulls her bunny tricks out of the hat she’s worn her whole life, and for the first time in her life, they fail to work, the Zeta girls help her.
I know. Most people expect a movie about Playboy bunnies to have lots of sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. However, if that’s what you’re expecting from The House Bunny, you will be disappointed. I came away feeling like this was mostly a sweet story about learning to discover yourself. While it’s fine to want to be popular and appeal to the opposite sex, it’s very important to find a balance between being popular and being true to yourself.
The video is a bright and colorful 1080p/AVC transfer, framed in a 2:35:1 aspect ratio. The source is clean and artifact free, with no pops, dirt or scratches. The color palette is vivid, nicely saturated, and leans to the use of bright eye popping colors. Blacks are deep, sometimes muddy, and not quite as strong as they should be. Pair that up with a contrast that is flat and the result is images that lack depth. This film has an overall warm look to it, which slightly skews flesh tones towards a yellow/orangish look that is not flattering. Images are clean, but a bit too stylized in a way that is not particularly pretty.
The House Bunny has a 5.1 English Dolby TrueHD soundtrack encoded at a 24/48khz bit and sample rate. One does not expect a particularly active soundtrack on this kind of movie, and we are not disappointed. This soundtrack was so conservative; I almost forgot it was there. The mix is very front heavy, with such minimal surround usage you get no sense of location, indoors, or outdoors without the visual cues. Even the party scenes are flat and uninvolving, as the bass in the LFE sounds weak. Dialogue is very clean and clear though, and since this movie is mostly dialogue, the mix serves its purpose well.
Sony does provide some none to interesting extras on this Blu-ray release: Twelve mini-features are included: “Anna Faris: House Mom,” “The Girls of Zeta,” “The Girls Upstairs,” “Colin Hanks: Mr. Nice Guy,” “From Song to Set: Katherine McPhee,” “From Bus to Trailer: Tyson Ritter,” “Look Who Dropped By,” “House Bunny Style,” “Zetas Transformed,” “Getting Ready for a Party,” “Calendar Girls,” and “House Bunny Memories.” It’s the usual blend of clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and on-set interviews that were probably shot in a single day. All totaled, there’s roughly 50 minutes of entertainment here, and that’s what it is: the same sort of mild entertainment we got from the film. Also included are 10 deleted scenes that run roughly a minute apiece. There’s a forgettable music video by Katharine McPhee.
