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DUFF (The) (Blu-ray)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (13th June 2015). |
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The Film
 Having grown up with gorgeous gal pals Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca A. Santos), Bianca Piper's (Mae Whitman) dream of a "brave new world" free of labels (where "jocks play video games, princesses are on anti-depressants, and geeks run the world) is shattered when boy next door/childhood friend turned obnoxious man-whore football star Wesley Rush (Robbie Amell) lets slip that Bianca is a DUFF (designated ugly fat friend): the gatekeeper of her hot friends, the approachable one guys get close to in order to gather intelligence to score with her hotter friends. Disillusioned after doing some internet research on the variety of DUFFs including "Political DUFF" (a picture of Chris Christie and Barack Obama) and "Dictator DUFF" (Kim Jong Un next to Dennis Rodman) and being able to single out ones in every level of the school's social strata, Bianca "unfriends" her bewildered best friends and hurtles through the five stages of grief to acceptance where feels invisible and stops caring about her appearance (not that anyone notices the change). Ironically, it is at this point that her "Amazeballs" crush Toby (Nick Eversman) decides to start talking to her, and she finds herself (as usual) stunned speechless in return. When she overhears that Wesley is failing chemistry and may lose his college football scholarship, she offers to help him study if he will "reverse DUFF" her (which he sees as the bigger challenge). He takes her to the mall to remake her image and have her practice approaching guys, but her idiosyncratic take on both is recorded by desperate hanger-on Caitlyn (Rebecca Weil) captures it on her smartphone because the hill's not only have eyes, but "the shrubs have bitches who videotape everything" and forwarded to Wesley's on-again-off-again/future Reality TV star/passive-aggressive girlfriend Madison (Bella Thorne) who turns it into a series of viral videos. In spite of Madison staking her claim on Wesley, he continues to help Bianca and they come to lean on one another. Their mutual attraction grows, threatening their other goals, but can it stand up to the scrutiny of their piers (on social media and face to face)? Lauded by Perez Hilton as " the Mean Girls of this generation," The DUFF as a film owes more to teen comedy forbears than to its own Kody Keplinger source novel. In the novel, Bianca lives with her alcoholic father (rather than Allison Janney's bitter divorcee turned self-help guru), has no "mean girl" rival or encouraging teacher figure in the film, the always quirky Ken Jeong and seeks escape in a sexual relationship with the Wesley character fairly early on and throughout. The film is pretty much the familiar plot of high school hunk, whether through a favor or a cruel bet, turns the not-particularly-ugly duckling (although Whitman has a bit more fanboy/hipster cache than the actresses who usually play the role) into a swan and falls in love with her. The lack of originality in the film adaptation it's not really Mean Girls, but it really should have aspired towards Heathers is all the more blatant because the film seems like it should be edgier, with its cute "everyone is someone else's DUFF" a variation on "just be yourself." In spite of this, Whitman and Amell generate enough chemistry, with what little they have to work with, for us to root for them and the incredibly predictable prom night ending in which Wesley has to choose between the prom queen and the DUFF. Ultimately, The DUFF is an entertaining diversion, but not the hip and trendsetting new teen comedy it hoped to be.  
Video
LionsGate offers the film in a strong MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1-framed 1080p24 transfer of this Arri Alexa XT-photographed production (3.4K sourced and 2K mastered according to IMDb) that nicely renders the naturalistic settings and lighting as well as the social media profile graphic overlays. Some shots meant to emulate cellphone video have been digitally degraded while grain has been added to a "porn film" fantasy.  
Audio
The sole audio option is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that has a nice surround presence during the school scenes along with directional bits when the social media profile graphics pop into the frame. The source music and the exclamations of "Amazeballs!" also have an appropriately bass-y presence. Optional subtitles are available in English, English with Hard of Hearing notations, and Spanish.  
Extras
Extras seem plentiful but are actually rather skimpy, consisting of several little EPK featurettes starting with "The DUFF Hits the Red Carpet" (3:30) at the TCL Chinese Theatre with the cast posing for photographs and giving "off-the-cuff" remarks about their castmates. The extended gag reel (3:15) does not seem very long for blooper reel, but it qualifies as an extension of the bits that appear over the first part of the end credits. In "Bringing the Book to Life" (2:15), author Keplinger recalls overhearing the term DUFF in high school only to learn that it was her. She also reveals that Whitman was the popular choice for her protagonist in a dream casting session she conducted on her blog in 2010 only to learn that Whitman would be cast in the film four years later. She acknowledges that the film changed things, but that it retained the book's spirit. In "Teen Comedies and The DUFF" (2:04), director Ari Sandel, producer McG, and the cast vaguely discuss the film's teen comedy genre antecedents while pretty much summing up the approach to the film adaptation as "Mean Girls with social media."   In "I am the DUFF" (2:41), the cast elaborate on the term (augmented by clips from the film in which Wesley explains that the words that the descriptors "ugly" and "fat" are not to be taken literally) as well as their own recollections of how they were labeled in high school. "The Duff Files" (7:21) is a series of individually playable profiles of the characters with sound bytes from their performers and input from the other actors, director Sandel, and producer McG. The disc also includes start-up trailers which are also selectable as previews from the main menu. The package also includes a DVD of the film and extras as well as a code for digital download.
Overall
 
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