The Duff

Just fyi, we are allowed to say ​“Mae Whit­man FTW” in this review even though it’s not real­ly a term you can actu­al­ly pro­nounce, but it’s in the spir­it of this delec­table teen com­e­dy about how dig­i­tal cul­ture has irrev­o­ca­bly altered the expe­ri­ence of high school. Whit­man is gold­en as Bian­ca, a DUFF (that’s Des­ig­nat­ed Ugly Fat Friend) who lopes around with two pret­ti­er girls who aren’t giv­en many fun­ny lines and is the easy entry point for boys want­i­ng to pen­e­trate the clique. You can tell she’s a duff because she spends her days wear­ing scrag­gy nov­el­ty tees, untied Kick­er boots and watch­ing hor­ror movies on TV.

Whitman’s immac­u­late com­ic tim­ing and total ease in front of the cam­era (it nev­er once feels like she’s act­ing) recalls an on-form Claudette Col­bert, the roman­tic foil, played by Rob­bie Amell, stand­ing in as her Clarke Gable. And it’s not just the deliv­ery of lines, it’s the all-in self-effac­ing and the fact that her pres­ence actu­al­ly rais­es the game of who­ev­er she’s work­ing with on screen at the time. Ace side play­ers Ken Jeong and Alli­son Jan­ney even lend The Duff some major spin-off potential.

The film charts Bianca’s belat­ed acknowl­edg­ment of her own duff sta­tus, trad­ing tutor time with Amell’s sexed-up quar­ter­back type Wes­ley for lessons in how she can tran­scend her duff­dom and real­is­ing that he’s per­haps less of a dopey jagoff than she’d ini­tial­ly sus­pect­ed. Sweep aside the Life Lessons which, admit­ted­ly, don’t quite add up, the prom-based finale set­tling for a bet-hedg­ing jum­ble which, while not per­haps not allow­ing dis­cern­ing teens to feel mil­i­tant­ly empow­ered about their body image or any sex­u­al hang-ups, does come across as authen­tic ode to lets-hash-the-details-out-lat­er teen romance.

The lim­it­ed stric­tures of the teen high-school com­e­dy does mean that, even when you’ve man­age to pull togeth­er a very high cal­i­bre group of com­ic per­form­ers, there’s only a num­ber of routes you can real­ly take through the sto­ry. But screen­writer Josh A Cagan, adapt­ing the YA nov­el by Kody Keplinger, man­ages to turn these cons into pros by sub­tly acknowl­edg­ing the poten­tial taw­dri­ness of this tem­plate, while tak­ing it seri­ous­ly enough for the plot and char­ac­ters to retain a sense of real world cred­i­bil­i­ty. Even its play­ful, extem­po­rised ver­sion of social media sug­gests it’s a movie that real­ly doesn’t want to come across as a bray­ing blowhard that takes itself too seriously.