In Spring, the Women All Wear Heels
The House Bunny (2008)
directed by Fred Wolf
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The pertinent question now is not whether Anna Faris is a good enough actress to play dumb, naive, or sweet, but how many roles the industry can write for her that don't depend upon a self-centered man for a foil. One of The House Bunny's biggest charms is the degree to which the members of Faris's adopted sorority calibrate the terms of their new popularity strictly by how they want to be perceived by other women. Male love interests are hardly excluded, but they're an afterthought. It's a nice contrast to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for example, where Jason Segel's typically overbearing egotist (his characters' misdirected courtships have always been products of tremendous emotional selfishness) crowds out every reason why beauties like Mila Kunis would even cross the room to say hello.
This month's "Wanna Pet the House Bunny?" photo-shoot in GQ, accompanied by the requisite poolside crop-top, suggests that Faris won't Jean Arthur her way into the next generation's pantheon of stars past. But it's not Faris's fault. Movies like The House Bunny are still riffing on Mean Girls more than Mean Girls' predecessors, and Emma Stone, as The House Bunny's smart, daring redhead, is the Miu Miu to Lindsay Lohan's Prada. 90% is still just the right place at the right time.
I say, if The House Bunny isn't a script that Lilo is interested in, write her a better one. Write a part for Anna, too. Sisters, even! Two middle-school teachers in Florida (where both girls went to college) fly home to Omaha one Christmas and get delayed by a Great Plains snowstorm during a Dallas layover. They have enough cash to take a cab downtown, but it's up to the right encounter with the aging patriarch of a Texas wildcatting fortune to lay the rest of the state's oil reserves at the women's deserving feet. Four out of five cravats for sure!
directed by Fred Wolf
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The pertinent question now is not whether Anna Faris is a good enough actress to play dumb, naive, or sweet, but how many roles the industry can write for her that don't depend upon a self-centered man for a foil. One of The House Bunny's biggest charms is the degree to which the members of Faris's adopted sorority calibrate the terms of their new popularity strictly by how they want to be perceived by other women. Male love interests are hardly excluded, but they're an afterthought. It's a nice contrast to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for example, where Jason Segel's typically overbearing egotist (his characters' misdirected courtships have always been products of tremendous emotional selfishness) crowds out every reason why beauties like Mila Kunis would even cross the room to say hello.
This month's "Wanna Pet the House Bunny?" photo-shoot in GQ, accompanied by the requisite poolside crop-top, suggests that Faris won't Jean Arthur her way into the next generation's pantheon of stars past. But it's not Faris's fault. Movies like The House Bunny are still riffing on Mean Girls more than Mean Girls' predecessors, and Emma Stone, as The House Bunny's smart, daring redhead, is the Miu Miu to Lindsay Lohan's Prada. 90% is still just the right place at the right time.
I say, if The House Bunny isn't a script that Lilo is interested in, write her a better one. Write a part for Anna, too. Sisters, even! Two middle-school teachers in Florida (where both girls went to college) fly home to Omaha one Christmas and get delayed by a Great Plains snowstorm during a Dallas layover. They have enough cash to take a cab downtown, but it's up to the right encounter with the aging patriarch of a Texas wildcatting fortune to lay the rest of the state's oil reserves at the women's deserving feet. Four out of five cravats for sure!
posted by NPK at 9:00 PM
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