The Duff review: A seen-before story of teenage love that's still fun and charming

Jun 12, 2015 11:10 IST

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By Gayatri Gauri

Labels stick. Labels suck. Labels crush. Jock, Geek, Rocker, Mean Girl. These are all passé. Here’s another: Designated Ugly, Fat Friend (DUFF). This, of course, is bestowed with typical teenage casual cruelty in the American high school. So, let’s play along with the mothers and grandmothers of teen clichés in The Duff, based on a novel by Kody Keplinger. It’s a seen-before-tale of teenage love — warts, pimples and all — but it turns out to be quite a fun sport.

Hot chicks in high school are either over-sweet (read: dumb) or shameless leggy, blonde bitches. The ugly and fat ones are smart and funny, but invisible. They were given polite terms like plain Janes in pre social networking era. Now, they are called ugly and fat outright, and are the butt of YouTube video pranks.

The same applies to the boys. The dumb studs with six packs fail their Chemistry papers, but are great at flirting in the labs. The cute, curly haired charmers play the guitar rock stars who break hearts with the flick of a guitar string.

A still from the movie The Duff. Image from Facebook.