If a 33-year-old man tells you a movie created for and targeted solely to 15-year-old girls is a bad movie would you believe him? How about if he said it’s excellent? Or more correctly that he has no idea?
Whatever kind of critic you are (music film books visual art — typically all of the above) you’ll encounter things you’re wholly unqualified to pass judgment on though you’ll be loath to admit it. The Duff another teen movie sort-of remaking Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew might be a good movie. (I thought for a moment based on absolutely no information that the movie might be about Hilary Duff. It’s not.) Or it might be awful. Either way an early morning press screening attended by a few older white males is probably the wrong demographic for a teen girl melodrama. Because let’s be honest I can (and I should) talk about the film’s aesthetic (the technical and artistic qualities that make it work as a movie) but who really cares. The only two things that matter are whether the film will attract teenage girls (yep) and if it has a positive message (yep again).
That said my take on the film perhaps irritatingly is that it falls somewhere in-between on the quality scale. Bianca (Mae Whitman Parenthood) is a so-called “weird” teenager because she likes cult movies and does well in school. (What a fuckin’ loser!) Her two best pals are so the movie posits way hotter than Bianca though personally Bianca is exactly the sort of girl I would and still do fall in love with. (It’s totally okay to say this because Whitman is 26 years old in real life and doesn’t resemble a teenager at all probably the film’s most glaringly obvious flaw.) Taking a cue from predecessors (She’s All That 10 Things I Hate About You) the film does that aggressively irritating thing where they take an attractive young woman put ’90s overalls on her and call her gross and invisible.
After her next-door neighbour childhood pal high school football star and all-around dreamboat Wesley (also 26 years old in real life and not resembling a teenager) tells Bianca that she’s a DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) her world falls apart. How dare her besties turn her into a DUFF! (Even if they obviously don’t think this is what they’ve done.) Bianca tells them to take a hike. She then turns to Wesley who’s failing chemistry and therefore suspended from the football team with a proposition: turn her from a nottie into a hottie and she’ll help him pass chemistry class.
All would appear to be going well if it wasn’t for Madison (Bella Thorne) the school’s queen bee-atch and a cruel narcissist of sociopathic proportions. One of Madison’s lackeys (her um DUFF — they’re everywhere!) films Bianca trying on clothes vamping it up and pretending to make out with some guy she has a mad crush on. The video goes viral and before you can say “cyberbullying” Bianca is persona non grata. The realities and consequences of today’s young whippersnappers and their technology are rendered in realistic and painful detail complete with on-screen pop-up texts likes and shares.
Things happen lessons are learned and the correct people fall in sweet ’n’ sweaty teenagery love. The teens say shit a few times so you know they’re for reals. (The movie’s lone “fuck” is reserved for Bianca’s mom.) There are a few musical montages Ken Jeong (The Hangover) trying to be funny and a drawing of a huge penis and balls on a blackboard which is always hilarious and probably the second-best character in the movie.
As you can imagine The Duff’s main message is the usual: we all have insecurities so don’t cut each other down and just be yourself. Obvious stuff that’s still good and that kids need to hear. So if you’re reading this and you’re 15 take the bus with your pals and check it out.
THE DUFF directed by Ari Sandel starring Bella Thorne Mae Whitman and Robbie Amell opens on Friday February 20.
