Not a funny bunny

When I started college, I had this fantasy that it would be a place where no one gave much of a damn what I looked like; I could throw on my sweatpants and Coke-bottle specs and I would still have friends, boyfriends, etc. The writers of “The House Bunny” had no such fantasy.

Shelley Darlingson (Anna Faris) is a Playboy bunny who’s thrown mercilessly into the real world when she becomes too old to live in the Playboy Mansion. Lost and confused in a world where everything isn’t sexual code, she wanders onto a college campus and becomes a house mother for Zeta Alpha Zeta, a sorority of beauty-disadvantaged nerds who need her help to increase their chapter’s pledges. Shelley’s solution? Sex the girls up so the guys will flock to Zeta, thus giving other girls a reason to follow.

This is obviously the most sexist plan imaginable, and that fact isn’t completely lost on the writers. The movie’s saving grace is the brainy and quirky Mona (Kat Dennings), who counters Shelley’s popularity advice point for point and provides an outlet for any feminist patrons who happen to be in the audience. And it’s fun to see Shelley get the reverse treatment – she tags along with the Zetas as they attend class, and is plied with pop quizzes and index cards before a date with Oliver (Colin Hanks), a sober young nursing home operator who catches Shelley’s eye on her first day as a house mother.

Among the movie’s disappointments was the continued mediocrity of Hanks. It's difficult to remember the last time he was in anything but a supporting or bit role – whatever happened to the halcyon days of “Orange County,” when he was one of Hollywood’s rising stars?

And despite the early presence of a smart voice, the movie’s ultimate message is also disappointing. “The House Bunny” tries to make a point about accepting individuality, but the message that comes across a bit more strongly is this: As long as you’re not a frumpish loser and can change yourself enough to be conventionally pretty without becoming a valley-girl vamp, life will be peachy.