When I first heard about this movie being released --February 20th 2015, yes it's late review season-- I just wrote it off as just some teen movie that I wouldn't want to watch. Fast-forward to yesterday, where I saw that the movie was featured on iTunes, I thought to myself "Hmph, I think I'm going to give this a nice go-around."
You see, when you hear a lot of people saying good things about something you thought didn't look that great, you're really curious about it because you want to be proven wrong --I don't know about you, but I always want something to be great. Sadly, it doesn't always end up being the case. However, when it comes to The Duff, it IS the case. I was very pleasantly surprised when the movie was finished.
If you don't know what The Duff is about, let me clue you in on some of it --don't you worry, anything I tell you happens in the first five minutes of the movie. The Duff stars Mae Whitman as Bianca (main character), Robbie Amell as Wesley (Bianca's next-door neighbor), Bella Thorn as Madison (Wesley's on-again off-again aspiring reality TV star psycho girlfriend), Bianca Santos as Casey and Skyler Samuels as Jess (Bianca's best friends). With a nice supporting cast of Romany Malco as Principal Buchanan, Allison Janney as Dottie (Bianca's mom) and Ken Jeong as Mr. Arthur (Bianca's journalism teacher) among many others.
The movie begins being narrated by Bianca (Whitman) who begins talking about homecoming and how there comes a time when you have a big revelation in your high school life that makes you look at everything differently. Madison comes over to invite Jess and Casey to her raging party, but lets Bianca know that only guests with an invitation are allowed to come. So, right then and there Casey tears her invitation in half and hands it over to Bianca so she also has one. At the party Wesley "kindly" lets her know that she's the DUFF of her group of friends. Unbeknownst to him, she took offense to this -- you know, because DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, why would she be mad? Therein the whole premise of the movie.
Yeah, stare at them creepily. They'll be really uncomfortable.
The Duff felt really fresh to me, because it wasn't like most of all the other high school movies, it had personality and was very charming. Did I mention funny? Because I laughed out loud throughout a lot of it. Sure, it had the usual high school tropes in it here and there, but I mean, tell me about a movie that's completely original in it's entirety and I'll tell you it's really hard to find one --and the ones you do find, are hiding it really well.
Also, I didn't go to high school when things went "viral," so I could take a look at aspects of cyber bullying in a whole different perspective --because I know it happens, it just took a whole different meaning to me when I actually saw it develop itself into something, even though it's in a movie. It also took its jabs at today's issues with technology and how people in general don't interact with each other as they would do without it. You know, as human beings would normally do.
I was pleasantly surprised when I watched The Duff, it brought a very solid and tight personality in a time where movies tend to be mostly sequels or reboots of something. If you haven't had the time to watch this movie, I suggest you give it a shot, because you won't be disappointed.