Film Only (Rented from Lovefilm)


Shelley (Anna Faris) is a playboy bunny, she's an orphan who grew up as an ugly duckling and then matured, so she fully appreciates her new life and her new family and has never been happier.

Unfortunately just as she hopes to make her first playboy cover, she is asked to leave the Playboy mansion by one of Hugh Hefners aids, the day after her 27th birthday for being too old.

After leaving the mansion, she realises she isn't actually qualified to do anything else and due to a happy coincidence finds herself a job as the house mother of a university sorority house, it is one of the least popular university houses and is at risk of being sold due to lack of pledges(people wanting to join their house) and the girls who live there are incredibly geeky. The girls have a month to find 30 new pledges or they will lose their home.

Shelley decides the only way to make the girls popular is to make them more boy friendly, therefore she gives them all make overs with surprising results. Will the makeover help them gain the pledges they need, or will posh girls from another house sabotage everything?

My View:

This isn't a great film, it's not even a good film, I don't know enough about Anna Faris to know if she is a comedic actress, but she is so wooden that Colin Hanks (Her love interest) may have got splinters when he moved in for a hug at one point, although this is unlikely as he manages to reinvent the term dull in his portrayal of a man without personality, looks or charm. The film is a real strange mix of frat boy comedy and underdog drama but seems to enthusiastically fail at being either.

The story is really obvious and my other half predicted everything that would happen in the film within the first 10 minutes of it beginning, this didn't stop us watching the rest of it, as its not a great film but it is nice enough to be watchable.

The film isn't hilarious, it does have occasional funny moments, but it does have a strange watchable quality at all times.

The film has three obvious acts to it, they are all predictable unfortunately. Once Shelley becomes house mother, she has a team of misfit brainboxes and outcasts to look after, all are clearly much prettier than they appear at the start of the film, the girls played by Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis, Kiely Williams, Dana Goodman and Kimberly Makkouk, all mix the smart and the vacuous with keenness, although only Stone and Dennings seem to have any real acting ability to fall back on, the others are a mix of blank stares and silly accents, poor Rumer willis seems to have inherited her mothers acting ability more than her fathers, if this is anything to go by. Stone is by far the best thing in this and really throws herself into the part, but you can see quite clearly she is ready for bigger and better things.

Faris plays a dumb blonde with a heart of gold and she is slapstick until the last reel when she appears to gain some substance, unfortunately Colin Hanks is just as wooden as her love interest, he lacks charm, personality or any redeeming feature other than the fact he works in a retirement home.

The film is basic, it is an ok way to waste 90 minutes, but it really lacks any substance and for the most part, seems confused as to what point it is trying to make, while there is an attempt for a smart ending, it is missed by a mile and comes across as a simple and simplistic resolution to a fairly average film.