The House Bunny

Plot synopsis:
Shelley Darlington (Anna Faris) is an aspiring Playboy Playmate living the life of luxury in the Playboy mansion. The day after her twenty-seventh birthday, she awakes to find a note, seemingly from Hugh Hefner, asking her to pack up and leave. She happens to stumble upon a group of girls who remind her of herself: beautiful and fun. She follows them and sees that they live in luxury too. They turn out to be the Phi Iota Mu sorority, and snobbishly reject her when she tries to join them.
She makes her way down to the Zeta Alpha Zeta house, which appears to be far less luxurious than the first sorority she visited. The members of the Zeta house are dowdy, socially awkward, and caught off guard by Shelley's bubbly nature, prompting them to initially reject her. Once they see Shelley's ability to attract boys, the Zetas change their mind and take in Shelley as their new "house mother", hoping that she can save them: their sorority is in danger of being shut down unless they can get thirty new pledges to join.
During her time spent with the Zetas, Shelley meets and becomes attracted to an intellectual, altruistic guy named Oliver (Colin Hanks), who works at a retirement home. Shelley goes out on a date with Oliver, and while her flirty tactics work with most guys, they fail with him, for he is a guy who actually wants to get to know Shelley rather than just sleep with her. To impress Oliver on their upcoming second date, Shelley starts attending classes and reading books, and tones down her appearance. The second date is also a disaster because she wears glasses that aren't meant for her, and brings along note cards to help her sound smart.
Having gotten a makeover and lessons on how to attract guys and be popular, the Zetas throw a party, which is a huge success. Later, the Zetas are reviewing the girls who are hoping to pledge to Zeta, but their new popularity has made them conceited. When they realize what they've become, they blame Shelley—just as she returns from her unsuccessful date.
Although Shelley had just been invited back to the Playboy mansion (after Hefner had learned of the forged dismissal) and decided to stay with the Zetas, the unexpected attack from them makes her reconsider, and she calls back to accept the invitation. The Zetas then feel guilty, and decide to give themselves a second makeover, this time being "Half-Shelley and Half-Themselves". They also decide to draw the pledges out at random, instead of judging them. They show up at Shelley's photo shoot and ask for her to come back, to which she agrees, having changed her mind about her dream of being a centerfold.
The rival Phi Iota Mu sorority intercepts the invitations and prevents them from being mailed out, so the Zetas are again in danger of being shut down at the campus meeting of the Panhellenic Council. Shelley crashes the meeting and gives a heartfelt speech about what her experience with the Zetas has taught her about love and acceptance, and asks for pledges on the spot; gradually thirty students agree to pledge, and the sorority is saved. Oliver and Shelley reconcile, and Shelley explains that she likes Oliver a lot and was trying too hard to impress him. They decide to start over with their relationship and Oliver is looking forward to getting to know the "real" Shelley.
The film ends with Zetas and their new pledges celebrating. Shelley has remained in close contact with Mr. Hefner and her friends at the Playboy mansion.

Tags: comedy, entertaining, adult comedy

Review:
All in all, The House Bunny is surprisingly funny, all because of Anna Faris and Emma Stone, both of whom have very bright futures ahead of them.
But it does produce a few wonderful - and hilarious - surprises that make it a very enjoyable 90 minutes.One is Anna Farris, who does a great twist on the archetypal dizzy blonde beloved of Hollywood since time immemorial.But the real kickers are the jarring one-liners that pepper an otherwise sweet and predictable film.
If Anna Faris, most commonly known as the one portraying/making fun of the Neve Campbell "Scream" role in the "Scary Movies" was ever going to become the next big female comedienne the time would be now.
They decline her for house mother but she finds a home with the Zeta sorority, a group of misfit girls, led by Natalie (Emma Stone), who seriously need to improve their image and attract new members in order to stop the college from closing their house.
Sometimes it gets a few chuckles and other times it comes off looking embarrassingly sitcom-ish, like when Shelley tries to look brainy to impress a guy by wearing very thick glasses that make her dizzy, but overall the script isn't as smart or funny as "Legally Blonde" and that hurts its chances.
This kid just doesn't seem to be getting many chances to shine, and here he's wasted as the romantic lead in a movie that's pretty low on the romance."The House Bunny" begins, middles, and ends like most college movies do, just unfortunately its not funny or clever enough to distract from the generic plotting.
Anna Farris plays a ditsy blond who gets kicked out of the Playboy Mansion (Hugh Hefner is a good sport in this movie!), ends up homeless, and ends up as a house mother for a sorority of "loser" girls (smart girls who don't know how to attract boys).
Of course it won't be the most memorable movie I've seen, but for late August, it's not all that bad.Comedienne Anna Faris is perfectly cast as a carefree, big-haired and hare-brained Playboy bunny who after celebrating her 27th birthday (that's 59 in bunny years) at the Playboy Mansion, where she has lived much of her life, gets kicked out of there by yours truly, Hugh Hefner.
I would never recommend this movie for its depth of story, but Faris' performance, with the bonus of early Emma Stone, makes "The House Bunny" a movie that delivers smiles and cheers..
Ever since I saw the trailer for The House Bunny back in May, I was looking forward to seeing it, this looked like a fun comedy and we all love Anna Faris, this girl is just adorable, and she makes comedies a lot of fun.
A lot of the moments where she acts stupid, she looks a little uncomfortable at times, I think that's why this movie didn't stand out as well as other dumb blonde comedies.
But it's mindless entertainment, the message, it worries me a little, I'll explain why in a little bit, but I'd say if you're a grown up and you know better, than this is a fun little movie.Shelley is a hot playboy bunny whose life is just grand, she's a sweetheart, a little on the slow side, but always has good intentions, and when it appears that Hugh Hefner wants her out of the house due to her age of 27, she must pack up her things and take off.
Now things become a success with the sorority, but they become a little too shallow and Oliver wants more than a playboy bunny, he wants a girl to talk too, and to top that off the other sororities are upset to learn that the former losers are now hotties that everyone loves.My one problem with this movie, even though it is enjoyable, the message isn't appropriate for young girls.
In the end, much like a "bunny" in reality, this isn't going to give the brain cells much company and whatever fun is had will be quickly forgotten in no time; shallow, trite and ridiculously unfocused, House Bunny should be fine enough for teenage girls looking for some brain dead amusement, but for anyone else, this is material best left alone.Following the story of ugly neglected orphan turned Playboy centrefold wannabe turned homeless bimbo, House Bunny opts to tell the classic tale of 'be yourself and always appreciate those closest to you'.
It goes without saying that her character suffers the most from this schizophrenia I referred to earlier, and Stone certainly entertains more as Act One Nerd, but consistency aside, she adds an air of vibrant ambiance that counters Faris' more eccentric glow.Aside from those elements however, plus the undeniable fact that most will find something to laugh at here, then House Bunny falls flat.
She's funny and can really get into a character, even though this role seemed like her roles on the Scary Movie series, playing a dumb and shallow girl.
It doesn't help that they hired the chick from the Scary Movie series (seriously, Anna Faris as a Playboy bunny?).Save yourself the trauma and just watch this pirated on the internet.
There's a scene in The House Bunny where a key character inquires as to whether Shelley is, in fact, "that dumb." One of her fellow sorority sisters immediately stands up and says, indignantly, "She's not dumb!" This is an important scene, and my immediate assumption was that we, the audience, were meant to shake our fists at the screen and say, "Yeah!" But then I remembered that for well over an hour by then, the movie had been scrambling frantically to get us to laugh at how genuinely and spectacularly dumb she is.This is a contradiction that permeates the entire movie, with strange results.
Nice.The story is basically Legally Blonde in a sorority house, so it's obvious that the movie's message must have something to do with superficiality and obsessions over appearance and other such nonsense.Shelly, played by Anna Faris, is booted out of the Playboy mansion and finds herself homeless, so she decides to shack up with a sorority of uncool girls and teach them how to turn themselves into male fantasies.It's sad that the movie fails so completely because there is so much potential there, but, unfortunately, they just don't know where to stop with the cartoonishly overblown outcasts.
There's a scene at the end that is meant to tie everything together and make it all make sense, but it is one of the biggest forehead slappers I've seen in recent memory.I've noticed lately, particularly with movies like Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder, that there are a lot of new things being done in the comedy world.
A paper-thin concept: After Playboy bunny Shelley is kicked out of the playboy mansion, she finds a job as the house mother for a sorority full of socially awkward girls.
Once you stop vomiting at the thought that Adam 'Not-Funny-In-The-Least' Sandler had anything to do with this film, you might really enjoy it for the presence of Emma Stone.Emma is super as 'Natalie', a sweet girl who wants to help save her sorority.
On the flip side, Anna Faris' dumb Playboy Bunny schtick gets old real fast as she appears to have only one expression, although she shows her butt (if that makes any difference).
Overall pretty good film that's funny with some good one liners and witty lines it just doesn't take things serious either and the appearances from Hef and D' Angelo are good yet the sweetheart star that makes us all tingle and blush is the cute and sexy Anna Faris who made it worth a watch..
Although she proves good in getting the girls to come out of the Dark Ages and the part where she stands over the man hole cover made me laugh, the film is as stupid as all those dumb jokes about blonds.
Hefner happily takes part in the movie as it allows him to further cement this idea of him as a cool part of our culture where he is like a kindly uncle preceding over good clean fun, and certainly not a pornographer who has gotten rich from the fact that young women are attractive in states of undress or while having full sex.Speaking of this actually, it is hard to avoid one of the biggest underlying problems with the film and it is related to the whole Playboy thing.
Until the cognitive dissonance set in: Playboy Enterprises (who run 6 p*rn channels in the UK alone, each one showing over 50 films (eg, one recent title was, "Fresh and Juicy Lolitas")) may deny that their Playboy pencil case (de rigeur for 10-year-old schoolgirls nowadays) and Playboy single-size bed linen are designed to groom girls for a future in the porn industry but, with a mainstream film showing in London's West End rated 12A, which begins and ends with pages turning on a fairy tale, in which Shelley's student housemates contrast unfavourably next to her (their fellow students break in and paint "LOSERS" on the livingroom wall, whereas she is a delightful, pleasing, uninhibited, popular, attractive, Playboy bunny (resembling the most-purchased model out of all the Barbie-doll products) whose preferred home is the Playboy Mansion and whose proudest moment is being chosen by Hef for the Miss November centrefold in Playboy magazine) says otherwise.
Anna Faris (Well known for appearing in the Scary Movie films) plays a dim and narrow-minded Shelley Darlington bunny girl of the Playboy mansion, but when she leaves she takes to Zeta's house on a college campus to for fill place as a house mum.
I am ashamed to admit it, but The House Bunny is actually quite fun.Anna Faris plays Shelley, a Playboy Mansion 'Bunny' who has been thrown out of the mansion for being too old ('old' meaning 27 - probably about right in the eyes of Hugh Hefner).
In fact, some of Anna Faris' lines and mannerisms are downright hilarious and she would almost carry this on her own, had it not been for Emma Stone who compliments Faris' glamour in her 'geekiness.' Yes, this film is as dumb as any that openly puts a Playboy Bunny in the lead role.
Decent comedy, but most of the laughs are to be had in the first half - discounting the grating opening Playboy mansion sequence, that is - and as the plot starts to kick in the jokes seem to take a back seat.Anna Faris is a deft comic actress and her performance here is very good - even if she's not always given lines that match her talents - and the film benefits from excellent casting of the Zeta house sorority girls.
Those who have the hots for Anna Faris will definitely want to see The House Bunny since the Scary Movie actress (now blonde) spends the whole film wearing a range of extremely skimpy outfits, including mini-skirts, bra tops, and really small hot pants.The film itself is clichéd hogwash in which Playboy Playmate Shelley (Faris) helps the misfits of a sorority house who are in danger of being kicked off campus.
Meanwhile, the sorority girls help ditzy Shelley to become a little smarter so that she can impress sensitive guy Oliver (Colin Hanks).The whole thing is incredibly formulaic, delivering nothing we haven't seen many times before, and the majority of the comedy falls flat, but Faris is always on hand to distract the viewer by not wearing very much..
I'll readily admit that I'd love to see her do more dramatic roles (Shelley falls squarely into the type of character that Anna has played in many movies), or maybe just a more subtle kind of comedy.
Nevertheless, "House Bunny" ends on a very satisfying note, with a few surprises.It was fun to watch the other girls in the house change after Ana Faris' character Shelley makes them over.
One of the running jokes throughout "The House Bunny" is that several characters call Anna Faris' character Shelley vapid, and she takes it as a compliment.
"The House Bunny" is shallow, inconceivable and so formulaic that even its bimbo protagonist could apply it correctly to a math problem -- but it knows it, has fun with it and manages to come off cute.Anna Faris plays maybe the most extreme dim-witted main character ever to grace the screen, but she does so with utter conviction.
Major kudos to her.Produced by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison (yes, some of his usual cameos appear in the film), "The House Bunny" is another image obsessed teen/college girls' movie from the writers behind two of the best films of the genre: "Legally Blonde" and "10 Things I Hate About You." Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith clearly know how to write girl-driven comedies in a way that doesn't insult most movie-goers taste.
For much of "The House Bunny," there are some serious messages that girls under 16 do not need to be mixed up with and though it tempers them with the "middle ground" attitude, it doesn't -- like most formula comedies -- do so convincingly in the end.Makes you wonder what an actor like Colin Hanks is doing in the middle of this trashy pop girls-night flick, but in honesty he's a relief with all the fake tanning, Juicy-wearing stench that overwhelms the film.
But to be honest, the cast of girls here is rather talented: Kat Dennings ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin"), Bruce and Demi's daughter Rumer Willis, pop vocalist Katherine McPhee and Emma Stone of "Superbad," who shows the most promise of all these young actresses with her convincing performance as Natalie, the house leader who wants the best of both worlds -- she's a lovable nerd and a risk-taker.
Anna Faris makes HOUSE BUNNY a film that you root for her character from the opening scenes to fade out, and in the end you realize that this supposedly "dumb bunny" has come into a world of young collegians and with her own sense of where she has been in life, and brings a fresh perspective to not only the Zeta House, but most importantly to her self, in a journey that shows us the inside of the pretensions of sorority rush and the amusing Playboy mansion antics.Ms. Faris is the next big actor/comedian coming to Gollywood, and her performance in LOST IN TRANSLATION is one in which you get a taste of what she can do as lead in a film such as BUNNY.
But BUNNY proves that it isn't always the top house which provides the best experience in college life, but that individuality even in Greek life, can find a place like Zeta.Loved the film, and will look forward to more from Anna Faris..
And, through her guidance and wisdom, she guides the sorority girls in finding their rite of passage in the beauty of their inner and outer selves, in those around them, and in the wisdom of the world.The entire cast is marvelous--including Anna Faris, Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis, Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, Christopher McDonald, Beverly D'Angelo and, last but not least, Hugh Hefner.
Dear Anna,I just saw you in 'The House Bunny' and have to say: I thought you were great.This movie had disaster written all over it until you showed up, but somehow you managed to turn it into a "Funny bits of Scary Movies meets Legally Blonde", and you know what?
I knew from the beginning this movie wouldn't be a masterpiece, but Anna Faris is so good playing the dumbass sexy girl (I'm saying that in a good way, because I like her.
I think Anna Faris acts this 'constantly groping for ideas' aspect brilliantly - making everything appear as if coming to her 'on the spur of the moment'.This is a super film which I hope to see again on the big screen at least one more time before the end of the month.
It is a feel good movie about a orphan girl turned playboy bunny that is just looking for a family since she never really had one of her own.
It did try to be like Mean Girls in a few ways, but it wasn't terrible.It's meant to be a comedy, and I laughed a few times alright, but I think I enjoyed the story more.
A female comedian corn with the comedy gene, and while some of the dialogue the writers have given her is awful, she makes it work.When Playboy playmate Shelley (Anna Faris) is unceremoniously evicted from Hugh Hefner's lavish mansion in order to make room for some younger beauties, her quest for employment finds her serving as den mother to an unpopular L.A. sorority in this Happy Madison production directed by Fred Wolf.
Sure, the dumb blond jokes in The House Bunny are old and played out, but Anna Faris gives you continuing reason to laugh in a film that is far funnier than it really deserves to be.
Sure, the dumb blond jokes in The House Bunny are old and played out, but Anna Faris gives you continuing reason to laugh in a film that is far funnier than it really deserves to be.
The House Bunny plays on the sexy-but-dumb stereotype to the fullest extent and Faris has proved in the past, as a regular in the otherwise awful Scary Movie films, she can pull this off.
The House Bunny plays on the sexy-but-dumb stereotype to the fullest extent and Faris has proved in the past, as a regular in the otherwise awful Scary Movie films, she can pull this off.
Colin Hanks also does a good job in a comedy.As said before, the person who makes the movie well worth watching is Anna Faris.
The jokes are also pretty funny too and the film is just a feel good movie.