We spoke very briefly about Anna Faris on the podcast on Monday, when I talked about a series of publicity stills that were released in support of her movie What's Your Number?, which came out on DVD this week. Faris is a talented comedic actress who is almost always in horrible films, which is a shame, but she doesn't really have anyone to blame but herself, if the What's Your Number images are any indication.
Faris is funny in general, but she's especially good at one thing: creating an expression of comical shock and disbelief. It's a wonderful face that is used so often that her screenplays must have some kind of emoticon shorthand for it; it captures moments of a character's complete inability to grasp the ramifications of what is transpiring in front of her face, as the next few images (again, all from one film) should indicate:
The images above are all from What's Your Number, but the face is the product of fifteen years' worth of refinement and practicing it in mirrors, no doubt. Faris put it through the paces most exhaustively in the Scary Movie films, but she's also trotted it out in stuff like Smiley Face, Yogi Bear, The Hot Chick, and, well, go pick a movie from her back catalog and it's a good chance you'll find it in a scene or two somewhere in there. I think I like it because of the innate childishness of it.
For no other reason than because I found it funny, here's a not-even-close-to-exhaustive retrospective on what we can only call The Faris Face.
