By Will McCurdy
Rating: 1/5 Paws
It is an odd day where the following phrase is true: “Twilight” was an inventive movie. Before everyone starts sharpening their pitchforks and finding out my home address, some clarification is necessary.
“Twilight” despite all its misogyny, poor dialogue, offensiveness to the undead, promotion of abusive relationships and making of Kristen Stewart as an “actor” was a new spin on the genre of teen films. It was the type of movie with one foot in the grave while digging the hole for the other one with shovel labeled clichés.
Thus, the movie “The Duff” was made. It is a film that takes the teen movie formula (girl doubts looks, meets up with guy, gets made over, guy falls for her, they foil the plot of the school popular kids, happily ever after), adds more social media than a naïve extrovert’s phone and tops it off with a dash of inferiority complex fuel to make it relatable to those who aren’t having a hard enough time in high school with their insecurities.
That is of course where the title comes in. The term “Duff” is an acronym standing for Designated Ugly, Fat Friend. Upon hearing the title for the first time during a commercial, I thought that a sociopath had somehow worked their way into leading a producing firm and this wouldn’t have been too far off. In an era of increasing acceptance of various bodies and personalities, the movie proudly waves about the word as though it was their own little sadistic creation. It constantly reminds the protagonist, and by extension, parts of the audience, that they should be in that category or else be forced to be out of the totally sick social loop created by the marketing team and the producers at CBS.
The plot follows Bianca (Mae Whitman), an easily impressionable girl who after being called a Duff by her socially and mentally inept neighbor Wesley (Robbie Amell) decides to rid herself of her well-adjusted childhood friends, Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca Santos) out of fear that she isn’t as attractive as them. In order to “fix” herself, she approaches Wesley for guidance while she helps him with his failing grades, to which he agrees, all the while being hounded by Wesley’s mentally unstable ex-girlfriend and external antagonist Madison (Bella Thorne).
The term external antagonist is mentioned because though Madison is a bully and all around unpleasant person, the main antagonist in terms of character development to Bianca is herself. She believes Wesley and keeps him around, even falling for him on a purely physical basis despite the emotional and mental distress he causes her that kick starts the entire plot. And it’s not as though she has no one else as her friends happily accept her back after the anti-climax with no negative repercussions for her actions. They aren’t very developed as characters, but they do something that the entire movie should have done from the start: dismiss the sexist acronym as nothing but another social stigma created to deflect the insecurities of others. If the credits rolled after that, I wouldn’t feel as though I wasted my money.