REVIEW: “The Duff” relates to most high school students

By Kacey Hsu,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

“The Duff”, directed by Ari Sandel, is the newest addition to the lineup of movies every teenage girl must see, alongside comedy classics like “The Clique”, “Clueless”, and “Mean Girls”. The movie hit theaters on Feb. 20, and already made $4,270,000 on the first night of it’s release.

The film includes all the standards of a movie depicting modern high schools; the main girl who can’t get the boy’s attention, the boy who the girl likes that we later find out is not “the one”, the girl trying to change herself to be more noticeable, the new guy the main girl realizes she wants, the mean girl who sabotages everyone, the school and it’s teachers who seem to not realize the intense bullying happening in the school, and the homecoming dance.

All these components combined with more lighthearted scenes will either make you laugh or think “aww that was cute”.

“The Duff” stars Mae Whitman as Bianca Piper,a book-smart girl always ready for a laugh, who can be recognized in her latest film appearance in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, and Robbie Ammell, previously starring in “The Tomorrow People”, who plays Wesley Rush, the attractive childhood friend and neighbor Bianca grew up with. Bella Thorne who plays Madison Carter, is the popular mean girl, who is most popularly known from her lead role in “Shake it Up” on Disney Channel.

The movie starts off showing Bianca and her closest friends, Jess (Skyer Samuels) and Casey (Bianca Santos), hanging out in a group like they have since they were little. Their friendship grows closer everyday until people from school gather at one of Madison’s exclusive parties, and Bianca is introduced to a new term, “the duff”, which is short for “designated ugly fat friend”.

This is the guy or girl in every friend group who is known as the more approachable one or the gatekeeper to his or her much more attractive, datable, and intimidating friends. For Bianca, she happens to be the duff to her pretty friends.

Denying the fact that she was acknowledged as her group’s duff, Bianca begins to notice all the signs that point to the fact that she really is the duff. Long story short, Bianca cuts off her friends and refuses to be known as their duff, and sets herself on a mission to be the attractive and dateable girl in school.

Meanwhile, Wesley is failing chemistry. Bianca sees this as golden opportunity, and quickly makes an exchange with Wesley; for him to help her lose her duff-ness, and for her to help him pass the chemistry mid-term.

Through the rest of the film, the viewers are brought along through Bianca’s journey of changing her wardrobe, her attitude, and her duff reputation, all while being tormented by Madison, who is Wesley’s on-and-off girlfriend. Although you may be able to guess what happens next, if you’ve seen your fair share of chick flicks, I’ll leave it here for you to figure out how the movie ends.

After seeing the movie, I have to say that unlike everyone’s favorite, “Mean Girls”, it’s probably one of the more relatable high school setting films. This film stresses the important idea that bullying and sabotaging others doesn’t make you cool, and that it’s okay to be your own person, which I think is a good message aimed at the intended audience. “The Duff” is one of my new favorites and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again for a second, third, or even fourth time.