“The DUFF” spends a lot of time trying to make the term “the DUFF” happen. It stands for “designated ugly fat friend,” and, yes, has an Urban Dictionary listing. But I refuse to believe this is something all the kids are saying. If it were, “The DUFF,” a formulaic high school comedy that’s anything but current, wouldn’t labor so extensively to defend its premise/title, which approximately six viewers will mistake as that Hilary/Haylie Duff documentary they’ve been hoping for.
High school senior Bianca (26-year-old Mae Whitman of “Parenthood”) learns of this cruel label when her next-door neighbor Wesley (26-year-old Robbie Arnell), obviously the quarterback of the football team and sometimes-boyfriend of the school’s head bitch (17-year-old Bella Thorne of “Blended”), identifies Bianca as such. It doesn’t matter that she’s neither fat nor ugly. Only that, widely perceived as the least-hot member of her appealingly loyal group of friends (Skyler Samuels, Bianca A. Santos), Bianca’s either ignored or treated as a non-threatening entry point to the nearby hotness. “Are you duffing me?” she later asks a guy she suspects only has interest in her pals.
If I had to bet on whether duff would become globally used as a verb, a la Facebook, I would bet no.
You know this movie will involve a montage of trying on clothes and a “whoa” moment when dude sees Bianca in the kind of clothes she spends most of the movie avoiding. (Early on she prefers overalls, which recalls one of the few laughs in “Not Another Teen Movie.”) Adapting Kody Keplinger’s novel, first-time feature director Ari Sandel and writer Josh A. Cagan (“Bandslam,” a superior movie also featuring people too old to play high schoolers) fill “The DUFF” with many bad jokes, like Wesley accusing Bianca of being racist against jocks, or “jockcist.” At any age, no one likes people who embarrass themselves trying to be funny.
The occasional savior is Whitman, who played Ann “Her?” Veal, a character whose plainness was a punchline, on “Arrested Development.” The actress brings such kindness to Bianca that the movie almost sometimes sort of works as empowering evidence of many teens’ flawed, self-esteem-driven perspectives. Usually, it’s a poorly written reminder of the mediocrity of distant memories like “She’s All That” and “Whatever It Takes,” and another reason to be excited about the upcoming, spectacular, Sundance-winning coming-of-age film “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” It’ll make you forget all about “The DUFF,” though you probably already have.
2 stars (out of four)
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