Were it not for the heroic efforts of Anna Faris, “The House Bunny” would only have the recycled jokes from “Legally Blonde” to fill its running time. “Legally Blonde” was funny, but once was enough.
Faris, who grew up around here and graduated from the University of Washington before being discovered in the “Scary Movie” spoofs, is the engine behind the best moments in “The House Bunny.”
She plays Shelley, a resident of the Playboy Mansion and sometime model for the magazine (no centerfold, but there was a photo of her in a feature about girls with GEDs). Her brainless existence living in Hef’s place is rudely ended when she is kicked out on her 27th birthday.
Shelley lands a job as the house mother at a sad-sack sorority, where her unbridled enthusiasm and fondness for making things, uh, sexy will no doubt turn the house’s fortunes around.
There is a rival house of snobs, and a nice guy (Colin Hanks) who manages a nursing home, and college hijinks.
The script, by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith (they wrote “Legally Blonde” — go figure), can’t quite decide how it feels about the fact that the sorority becomes more popular when the sisters start slutting it up. Officially the movie disapproves (what’s inside is truly important, in case you were wondering), but it also acknowledges that holding car washes while wearing bikinis is a useful way to meet guys.
If the jokes aren’t fresh, some of the actors are. Emma Stone, whose star began to rise with “Superbad,” has some great line readings as the sorority leader, and Kat Dennings, who likely will break out in the upcoming “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” is instantly appealing.
But it’s all Faris, who has the wide-eyed cheerleader down pat. At one point Shelley re-creates Marilyn Monroe’s manhole moment from “The Seven-Year Itch,” but Faris is smart enough to channel Goldie Hawn’s determined ditz, not Monroe’s sleepy seductress. The result is amusing — and not enough to save the movie.
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