Movie Review: House Bunny, The (2008)

The House Bunny is a good example of a modern day fluffy comedy. Certainly, its script is well thought out and executed to be a barrel full of laughs for its intended teenage audience. The House Bunny is a flick that includes Hugh Hefner, the Playboy Mansion and a Playboy Magazine centerfold photo shoot in addition to other unusual ingredients for a comedy. In the hands of most directors, this would be the mix for a tasteless piece of trash. However, under the direction of Fred Ward, The House Bunny is a well done comedy that actually veers on the verge of being a comedy for the whole family.

The House Bunny stars Anna Faris as Shelley Darlingson, a qunitessentially dumb blonde Playboy Playmate who gets kicked out of the Playboy Mansion by Hugh Hefner himself. Darlingson winds up homeless and wanders around without a clue as to where she is or what she wants to do. Eventually, she meets some members of the local Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority. This local sorority house is in particular danger of losing its charter due to a lack of recruiting new pledges. In a rare display of initiative, Shelley offers her services as a "housemother" for the goofy sorority sisters. The girls hire her and soon Darlingson's bubbly optimism and ability to make homely girls beautiful make Zeta Alpha Zeta the hottest sorority on campus.

Shelley Darlingson's chief helper in this sorority house makeover is Natalie (Emma Stone) who begins the movie as a rather awkward sorority sister. Under Darlingson's guidance, Natalie blossoms into a flower of beauty and competence. The other girls are all interesting characters with the pregnant Harmony (Katharine McPhee) being the most hilarious. As a group, the girls all have the same problem in that they are all pretending to be what other folks want them to be like instead of being themselves. Shelley teaches them to be true to themselves and to be themselves.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of The House Bunny is the stunning performance of lead actress Anna Faris who previously played the role of Cindy Campbell in all four installments of the Scary Movie series, as well as other movies and guest roles in TV series, without ever hitting the big time. This is because most of her pre House Bunny roles were as just plain dumb blondes. In other words, Faris's previous roles were basically one dimensional versions of Shelley Darlingson. In The House Bunny, Faris showed that she was capable of both being your basic dumb blonde, but also of playing a much more nuanced character who is also capable of leadership.

While Anna Faris is surprisingly effective, that cannot be said for the rest of the acting. Other than Faris, the most effecive actor is Colin Hanks in the role of Shelley Darlingson's boyfriend Oliver. Of the remaining acting talent, both Emma Stone and Katharine McPhee are nice in their roles while Hugh Hefner was just being himself. The rest of the acting ranged from average to pretty bad.

Despite the inconsistent acting, most of the remaining aspects of the movie were fairly decent. The work of director Fred Ward was good and the cinematography was crisp. The House Bunny is a surprisingly good movie.

The script was aimed at a teenage audience and it succeeds at creating a movie that is very funny by the undemanding standards of teenage audiences. The best line in the flick was "You're 27? That's like 59 in Bunny years." A great deal of what the producers intended as being humor is of the sexual innuendo variety. For instance, Shelley refers to one's eyes as being "the nipples of the face." Had the filmmakers based this movie's humor around the characters and the situations that they are in, The House Bunny could have been just as funny, but it would also have been a comedy for the entire family. Just why they did not follow this route is subject to speculation, but it would appear that the movie makers felt that including the likes of Hugh Hefner and the Playboy milieu made this movie "sexy" and if you have a "sexy" movie, then you should not go for the clean stuff.


In the end, The House Bunny is a surprising movie. It works well for the teenage audience that it was made for. It does have a strong, positive message for its targeted teenage audience. The lead actress gives the best performance of her career thus far and director Fred Ward has a strong movie on his resume. This is a movie well worth considering going to the theater for.