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Beyond the Lens
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Putting Her House in Order
What with a February divorce and August comedy hit, 32-year-old Baltimore native Anna Faris may soon be looking back on 2008 as the year she turned the corner.
Friday, August 29, 2008
By Brent Simon
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Michael Bejian/WireImage.com
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Making her move
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Anna Faris is a rarity in young Hollywood - a fairly known commodity and proven performer to boot, but still an undervalued stock.
Collectively, the Scary Movie films in which she has starred have taken in over $430 million domestically, and Faris' supporting turns in movies like The Hot Chick, Waiting, Just Friends, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Brokeback Mountain, the TV series Friends and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation have shown her to be an inspired comic performer, equally adept at blank-faced satire, unhinged farce and physical slapstick.
Thus far, true breakout stardom has eluded Faris (consigned to a token, single-theater release, Gregg Araki's showcase vehicle Smiley Face failed to do the trick). But The House Bunny, along with co-starring roles with Topher Grace and Seth Rogen in forthcoming films, may help finally put her over the top.
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Lester Cohen/WireImage.com
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Another overpowering romcom gal
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The first film from executive producer Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company to really fully give itself over to a mostly female ensemble, The House Bunny is an utterly predictable and formulaic comedy given a huge kick in the keester courtesy of its effervescent star. The movie's inner-beauty and empowerment arc is consignment-shop thin, and handled with little élan by Fred Wolf, a former Saturday Night Live writer and Team Sandler veteran who stumbled through his directorial debut in the form of this year's quietly dumped Strange Wilderness. In the end, though, it doesn't matter, because every moment Faris is on screen is a moment in which something delightful could happen, and that's as good a reason as any these days to go to the movies.
Owing to the fact that The House Bunny is penned by Legally Blonde screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the film at times feels like a tailor-made companion piece the 2001 Reese Witherspoon hit. There are more than a few narrative bumps along the way, and gears sometimes grind for a scene or two when characters are forced to more nakedly advance the story. (It's best, for instance, not to think about the logistics of Shelley teaching the gals all about what boys like, when American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee plays a very pregnant coed.) Speaking generally, though, there's actually some amusement to the gender inversion of Greek-clash college flick clichés, and the value of the ditzy quips (“Eyes are like the nipples of the face,” advises Shelley) and some other banter are certainly above average.
Faris' breathy essence, though, is both the engine and the gasoline that makes this movie run. (She also nabs a producer credit, her first.) With her in the driver's seat, the sturdy Oldsmobile-feel of this plot earns its racing stripes.
Faris has the savvy timing and inherent appeal of a new millennial Carole Lombard or Lucille Ball, and the casting dilemmas she presents - clearly too talented and naturally charismatic for eye-batting girlfriend roles, and such a force of potential personality that she would eclipse a lot of drippy romcom leading men, like Edward Burns or Luke Wilson - summon to mind a similar problem faced by Téa Leoni, another under-appreciated comedic performer.
Whatever its final commercial haul, one thinks, however, that the skimpy pink bikinis on display in The House Bunny might finally help Faris get Hollywood's lasting attention.
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