(2.5/5)
In 2004, “Mean Girls” became the ideal toward which all subsequent teen comedy films would aspire. This influence hangs over Ari Sandel’s “The DUFF” like a storm cloud about to pop. The movie wants to be “Mean Girls,” but it can’t.
Just as the film’s characters wish to escape their labels to forge their own identities, “The DUFF” wants to form its own legacy. However, unlike Bianca, our protagonist, “The DUFF” relies too heavily on past convention and broad humor to escape its parents’ shadow.
For a movie developed around such a loathsome word, “The DUFF” is surprisingly toothless. It’s a moralism thinly masked by a slew of not-too-objectionable cuss words.
Throughout the film, we follow Bianca (Mae Whitman) as she comes to terms with society’s labeling of her as the D.U.F.F.—the Designated Ugly Fat Friend in her respective clique. And, along the way, she finds love. Enter Wesley Rush (Robbie Amell) as her D.L.I. (Designated Love Interest), who takes off his shirt quite often.
Mae Whitman is the movie’s saving grace, despite her being neither ugly nor fat. That the movie assigns Whitman these traits speaks volumes about Hollywood’s criminal standards of beauty, and the fervor with which the bullies in “The DUFF” disparage Bianca’s appearance verges on absurdity. For a movie that’s central message essentially boils down to, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” it is awfully shallow.
Whitman pours forth stilted dialogue with aplomb. Her experience in voice acting (most notably as Katara in “Avatar: The Last Airbender”) allows her to deliver lines with more conviction than most of her costars. With “The DUFF,” we hardly get to see her demonstrate her range as an actor.
What possibly best justifies “The DUFF” as an entry on Whitman’s resume is her chemistry with Amell. The two click like no other pairing in the movie, and perhaps the movie itself would not have suffered had it been retooled as a collection of scenes showing only Bianca and Wesley sniping at one another.
Amell does well with his dumb-jock-has-layers routine, and successfully converts Wesley from “terrible jerk” to “person you root for” over the course of the film. If one looked at the movie as only a vehicle for Whitman and Amell, it thrives.
Despite this chemistry, the movie’s supporting characters are as thin as its plot. Bella Thorne’s mean girl is no Regina George, but rather a diluted shadow of the irrepressible queen bee. The character has absolutely no redeeming qualities, yet still she prevails. Her lone defining trait is “catty,” and her character, like so many others, seems only to exist as a skeleton waiting to be fleshed out.
Even such celebrated actors as Allison Janney and Ken Jeong can’t seem to make more of the slim material they received.
Ari Sandel’s direction leaves much to be desired, especially as we see glimpses of what could have been in Bianca’s hyperactive imaginings. The movie’s color is the only quirk that may be used to differentiate it from other mediocrities, but even the film’s vibrancy can be lost in the marsh of uninspired panning and quick cuts.
The film adaptation of “The DUFF” takes the novel’s gimmick and removes the meat and heart of the original story. Kody Keplinger’s book features less slut shaming and more female friendship.
The romance between Bianca and Wesley is transformed from unconventional to typical rom-com fare in the book-to-movie translation. The movie could have done away with the unrealistic, action-driving cyberbullying that takes up far too much time in favor of sticking closer to the more believable source material.
“The DUFF” is a movie about transcending the labels society assigns to you. However, it gets too much of a kick out of exploiting stereotypes that, thematically, it never fully comes together. At times, it can be truly funny, and Whitman and Amell are a joy to watch interact. In the end, this doesn’t make up for the movie’s weaker aspects.
