The House Bunny
There aren’t many Hollywood movies that have the luxury of being endorsed by Hugh Hefner. Given that he’s one of the iconic businessmen in American history, one may be led to believe that there’s limitless opportunities to extend the Playboy franchise. However, the opportunity for a full-length Hollywood film has never seemed to get fully off the ground. Marketing to the Hollywood film industry may be a bit of a struggle for adult content producers. Actress, Anna Faris believes she has found the first way to get these industries to mingle.
The answer to this supposed film struggle is said to lie in Faris’ new comedy, “The House Bunny.” Starring as an out of work Playboy bunny named Shelley Darlington, Faris lends her voice and body to the all encompassing stereotype of women with few clothing options. By using a terribly degrading persona of stupidity, Shelley attempts to extend her help to an unpopular sorority while she, herself, struggles to find her place in the scary world outside the Playboy Mansion.
“The House Bunny” is a film that exhibits its entire bag of tricks within the first few minutes. The cutesy antics of Shelly quickly grow tiresome almost as instantly as the film becomes predictable. By molding the remaining characters on a similar treatment to Shelley’s, the film wanders far away from creativity, and more along the lines of a combination of “Revenge of the Nerds” and “Legally Blonde.” With so many of the jokes being a rehash of the past, “The House Bunny” quickly resorts to juvenile, unfavorable, and ultimately uninspiring ideas.
The humor in question may even be the deciding factor that keeps this film from being the bridge between the adult and Hollywood film industries. Traditionally, memorable college films like “Animal House” or “Old School” position favorably with their audiences due to gross-out gags or over exemplified bits of sexual humor. More specifically, they weren’t afraid of an R rating. The producers of “The House Bunny” were well aware of the possible loss in profits due to an R rating and made it known with humor that was neutered for a PG-13 rating.
The point here is not that there needs to be more nudity and sex jokes in the Hollywood film industry. There’s already an overbearing abundance of that. The real mistake here is how a typically adult subject is targeted primarily to teenagers. Since the jokes in “The House Bunny” aren’t even remotely close to something most people over 21 would find funny, the ultimate Playboy film has yet to be made. After all, we’re still waiting on that biopic starring Robert Downey Jr. as Hugh Hefner, aren’t we?
The House Bunny
Rated PG-13 for sex-related humor, partial nudity and brief strong language
Runtime: 97 min.
Starring: Anna Faris, Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, and Katharine McPhee
Directed by Fred Wolf
