Anagrams seem to be the language of this generation. The anagrams the social media generation create seem intent on making profanity and insults okay, because you’re calling someone a DUFF not a Designated Ugly Fat Friend.
Director Ari Sandel took Kody Keplinger’s book The DUFF and turned it into a hilariously real film with a mix of Mean Girls and Easy A qualities.
Mae Whitman (The Perks of Being a Wall Flower) plays Bianca and narrates the beginning of the film, explaining the social diversities of high school, the jocks, the goths, the geeks, the band geeks, etc.
Besides being aware of adolescence life, she also learns through her best guy friend Wesley (Robbie Amell) that she is in fact a DUFF. Her friends are size zero, gorgeous, and popular. Bianca sees the darker side of life and is obsessed with zombies, Vincent Price, and not so much on her appearance.
While this film tries to realistically portray high school life, making huge stabs at social media and teens’ obsession with documenting every aspect of their lives, Sandel still left me a tad disappointed.
While Bianca is quite quirky and different, her transformation to being self assured and confident was quite easy given the fact she was below average weight and simply wore clothes that were way too baggy for her.
It’s a lot harder to grasp your confidence when you’re being bombarded with social media’s obsession with size zeroes and you’re pushing a size nine or 10.
I have to give kudos to Sandel for making this book into a film, as it does strike a chord in the musical that so many of us have being trying to sing lately, “love yourself.” It’s hilarious that loving yourself needs to be such a reform or epiphany that we have to make movies about it.
As funny as this film is, it does not really show the struggle and perseverance it takes to love yourself.
Show me a film where the woman struggles to make her jeans fit, smiles though her teeth aren’t straight, and has a face with freckles or acne scars.
Loving yourself means loving your flaws, and the film The DUFF makes it easy to love yourself when your boyfriend can flex his pecs to your voice.
Let’s keep things realistic, okay Hollywood?
