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BY MAGGIE SCOTT

Do young women struggling with poor body images, serial boy problems and fitting in with the clique-du jour at school really need a role model like Shelley Darlingson, the heroine of the new comedy The House Bunny? Most hip teenage girls will get the joke and get the message this wildly satirical free-for-all is pitching.

Viewers with some knowledge of the world and memories of another era in Hollywood, will also get how Anna Faris tackles the larger-than-life jiggling, giggling brainless blonde stereotype with a totally convincing innocent aplomb that someone like Judy Holliday would have pulled off.

A dream combination of Goldie Hawn and her daughter, Kate Hudson, Faris dazzles with a totally committed presentation of her flamboyant character as a bimbo-with-heart that you can’t resist taking to your heart. Shelley used to be an unhappy, unloveable orphan. Until she blossomed into a young woman every man had fantasies of loving. Getting the home and family she’d always dreamed of, Shelley gladly took Hugh Hefner up on his offer of residence at the Playboy Mansion.

With her innate charms enhanced and molded to fit the image of what it takes to be the most popular girl with the guys, Shelley’s life is perfect except for two little wishes: to be Miss November and to live happily-ever-after at the Mansion. Both wishes are sabotaged by a back-stabbing bunny, and Shelley is evicted from the hutch with only the teeny clothes on her back and the platform stilettos on her feet. She thinks she’s been kicked out because being 27 is the same as being 59 in bunny years.

Feeling like that little abandoned orphan she used to be, Shelley is lost until she comes on what looks like a mini version of the Mansion. But the snooty beauties at Phi Iota Mu sorority think she’s just a bit too much of an “older, sluttier version of what they’re looking for.” Turns out, Shelly is just what the Animal House doctor ordered to cure what ails Zeta Alpha Zeta: someone who knows how to attract boys, which will attract girls, who will want to pledge.

In danger of losing their charter and being sold to Phi Iota Mu, the sisters are looking for a house mother after “the last one was hospitalized with hallucinations” and a party planner willing to see the potential in Zeta Alpha Zeta’s glaringly gender-challenged residents.

At first, Shelley’s unique brand of joie de vivre scares some of the girls who “haven’t even seen their own naked bodies, let alone a perfectly engineered one.” But, they’re gradually inspired to let their inner babes out to play, and they’re playing for keeps. But, will the transformation change them into snobs and will being hot cook Shelley’s chances with a nice guy (Colin Hanks) who can see what truly makes Shelley sexy?

You can see the influence of actor, here producer, Adam Sandler’s naughty little mind all over this project; but Faris really turns this salacious rabbit stew into classy rarebit. Rated PG-13 for sexual innuendo, profanity, partial nudity, vulgar humor.

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