Bianca, a content high school senior, finds her world flipped upside down when she realizes that among her peers she is referred to as "A DUFF", the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Having prettier and more popular friends, Bianca becomes infatuated with bettering herself in order to not be perceived as a DUFF, enlisting her neighbor Wesley, a popular jock at the school, to help her reinvent herself. While unable to reach the same heights as films like Mean Girls or Easy A, Ari Sandel's The Duff is a relatively charming, well-made teenage drama comedy that works best as a showcase for the talents of its star, Mae Whitman. As an actress, Whitman impressively plays Bianca in a way that is charming, funny, but also a genuine depiction of a young woman trying to be comfortable in her own skin. Whitman has a ton of charisma, and The Duff wisely recognizes this, being very much a film driven by her performance. The Duff is very playful, and the way Whitman is able to balance its more absurd humor with the film's more poignant moments about self worth and self-esteem is what makes The Duff one of the better films of this ilk. Another aspect of the film that stuck out to me is how Bianca is not a passive character. It's rare to see a film centered around a female character who is attempting to learn how to socially engage with members of the opposite sex, as many of these films tend to be about the male equivalent trying to date the attractive, popular female. Seeing Bianca nervously talk to various boys at the mall in a hilarious montage sequence was oddly refreshing in its own right, being something that simply isn't common in these types of films. One of The Duff's sharpest commentaries is centered around the ever-growing reliance teenagers have on social media, portraying how teenagers these days are more attached to technology than each other. While The Duff is a rather predictable film, its deconstruction of high-school stereotypes is sold, capturing the importance of having confidence and comfort in ones' own skin.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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