For those of you, like me, that had never heard the term "DUFF" before, it stands for the designated ugly fat friend and is usually applied to the least physically attractive member of a friend group. Delightful huh?
The DUFF's job is to be the approachable one that guys can probe for information about their hotter friends – whether they're seeing someone, if they'd go out with them etc – and also to make their friends look even better by comparison.
This film centres on Bianca (Whitman – who is neither fat nor ugly), a DUFF who doesn't know she is a DUFF until her next-door neighbour/captain of the high school football team Wesley (Amell) breaks the news to her at a party. Bianca is obviously hurt by the revelation and assumes her two tall, leggy best friends were using her all along. In order to shed her DUFF label and win the heart of the guitar-playing boy she likes, Bianca asks Wesley for help in exchange for chemistry grinds.
Now on paper, that sounds like a run-of-the-mill high school drama that has been made a hundred times over, but The DUFF is actually refreshingly funny and has heart. It's no Mean Girls or 10 Things I Hate About You, but it is almost as enjoyable and that is largely to do with the depth of character of both leads. Whitman and Amell aren't just two high-school stereotypes, their performances and comic timing is spot on and we really grow to care about both characters.
While the DUFF label is a really warped concept, the film goes against that with Wesley telling Bianca that you don't have to be ugly or fat to earn the title, and the key message being that you shouldn't compare yourself to other people and that you should love yourself for who you are.
I enjoyed The DUFF a lot more than I expected to - it's genuinely funny - and while I wouldn't give over my Saturday night to go and see it in the cinema, it would be perfect for some midweek evening or Sunday afternoon.
Sinead Brennan
