The DUFF

The three-star review I’m giving The DUFF is mostly because it’s remarkably inoffensive, the leads (who are both too old for their roles) are pleasant and the adult guest stars, Allison Janney and Ken Jeong, help carry the load. The movie overall is a way too familiar mediocrity. I will try to not hold it against director Ari Sandel — who won a Best Live Action Short Oscar about 10 years ago — that his biggest recent thing is a web series. At the same time, I can’t deny that his attempts at being stylish look like they were conjured up on rudimentary video editing software. However, the movie obviously — and oh so desperately — wants to be the new Mean Girls (2004) or Easy A (2010), but it can’t get near pulling that off. Worse, by drawing attention to its Mean Girls/Easy A envy, it only makes itself all the paler by comparison.

The screenplay by Josh A. Cagan (Bandslam) — adapted from a 2010 YA novel by Kody Keplinger — is by no means idiotic. Some of the lines are clever, and some of the characters are appealing. There’s also an attractive sweetness to the film, and that counts for something. But it’s incredibly predictable — predictable to the point that the center of the film and the inevitable rom-com penultimate reel of gloom have that “marking time” feel to them. I suppose it can be argued that the target audience for the film is less seasoned, and so may have never even seen Easy A, much less that so-last-decade artifact Mean Girls. On such a basis, however, I would have to conclude that perhaps no one over age 16 should ever see this movie. That may not be the worst advice I could give you, come to think of it. Still, The DUFF isn’t actively bad, it means well and sometimes works pretty well.

The whole idea is built around nerdy, horror movie loving Bianca (Mae Whitman) finding out — thanks to “man whore” jock, Wesley (Robbie Amell), whom she cordially detests (no prizes for guessing where this is going) — that she is a DUFF. That means she’s the “designated ugly fat friend” of her two hotter friends, Casey (Bianca A. Santos) and Jess (Skyler Samuels). It matters not that she’s neither ugly, nor fat — simply that she isn’t as desirable as they are, and that’s why guys are always asking her about her friends, but never herself. So she sets out to change this — with the help of Wesley, of all people. But he’s failing chemistry and needs help, so she offers to get him through the course if he can teach her how to be what guys want. Armed with this knowledge, she can not only lose her DUFFness, but she can possibly land the boy of her dreams, Toby (Nick Eversman). You know where this is going, right? Well, in case you don’t, the film is at pains to indicate that Toby is the most vapid character in the cast.

As I said, some of this works. More of it is just passable. Other parts verge on the tedious. But it’s never obnoxious. The message it contains — or its life lesson — is certainly a good one for anybody in high school. That it’s not especially different from the ones found in other, funnier movies weighs against it, sure, but its message — updated here to reference every bit of social media known to man — perhaps bears repeating every few years. Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual material throughout, some language and teen partying.