Director: Fred Wolf, 12A, 97min

Stars: Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Colin Hanks, Kat Dennings, Rumer Willis

On general release

So this is what happened to feminism. Shelley (Faris) is a classic bubblehead blonde. After nearly a decade at the Playboy mansion, she is summarily kicked out for turning 27 (“that's 59 in Bunny years!”) but lands on her platform heels when she bags an unlikely job as the sorority house mother to the girls of Zeta Alpha Zeta.

The Zetas are going to lose their house if they don't get some pledges soon - unlikely given that they are geeky girls with facial piercings and no dress sense. That's where Shelley can help. In no time at all, she has sexed them up and got the boys salivating.

Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith - the team behind Legally Blonde and Ella Enchanted - The House Bunny fancies itself a sisterly, post-feminist Snow White. Yes, there are seven Zeta girls, and after their makeover you may recognise Stone (from Superbad), Dennings (from Charlie Bartlett) and Willis (from Bruce and Demi). In this version the Evil Queen is a rival for the coveted Miss November centrefold (Hugh Hefner plays himself as a paternal pussycat, or tries to). Prince Charming comes in the form of Hanks's nice nursing home manager, who takes a shine to Shelley but would enjoy some intelligent conversation over dinner. Can the Zetas teach Shelley a thing or two in return?

See, a girl needs brains as well as miniskirts and water bras - but definitely not in that order. And they all rank below “a winning personality” in the beauty pageant of life. On the plus side, Faris (from Scary Movie) does have that same ditzy charm that worked for Judy Holliday, Marilyn Monroe and Goldie Hawn in the past, a kind of sublime ignorance that is almost like a higher plane (or a higher Palin). Despite a smattering of goofily ironic one-liners (“the eyes are the nipples of the face”), Wolf has delivered a film that is more clueless than Clueless, and the smiles come few and far between. One thing bothered me: don't sororities usually come attached to educational institutions, or did I miss something?

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