Blessed with a tour-de-force performance from Anna Faris as a Playboy bunny with a heart of gold, Fred Wolf’s feel-good comedy promotes messages of solidarity and individualism in the face of peer pressure.

Shelley Darlington (Faris) is one of the most popular residents at the Playboy mansion, winning the affections of all the other girls – everyone except a jealous rival.

Made to believe Hugh Hefner no longer wants her, Shelley flees the mansion and lands the position of house mother to the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority, which is threatened with closure.

She saves the day but in the process wins the heart of nursing home manager Oliver (Colin Hanks), but Shelley frets that she isn’t smart enough for him. Should she undergo a makeover too, by cramming at the library?

The House Bunny is a guilty pleasure – a harmless piece of comic fluff that tickles our fancy, despite myriad, glaring shortcomings. Faris is a one-woman comic dynamo, reminiscent of a young Goldie Hawn as her dreamer doles out invaluable fashion advice.

There’s a sweet rapport with Hanks, one of the few men not to be rendered speechless by Shelley’s cleavage.