Mae Whitman is a revelation! I THINK she just delivered the best perfomance of a teenager in high school setting movie I've ever seen. If you like good teen movies well then you've GOT to see, "The Duff" (2015: novel by Kody Keplinger, screenplay by Josh A. Cagan, directed by Ari Sandel). It Mae Witman as Bianca Piper, who is the toast of this post.
I saw this movie last night, and then JUST finished watching it again at the good ol' Bonney Lake Multiplex, and just like "Birdman" last week I actually though "The Duff" was beter the 2nd time I watched it, which is a rarity for me.
Let me just start off by saying how much I LOVE teenage stories, coming-of-age stuff from high school. Next to the romantic comedy genre I think that's my 2nd favorite movie genre. Not because Hollywood has a made a lot of great teenage-oriented movies, but because I recognize the impact they can have on our society. Teenage movies give teenagers going through adolescence perspective. Sure it's entertainment, but at the same time those movies are sowing into the lives of the those watching it. I recoginze that need, and have a natural bend to want to watch teen movies just for that reason: influecing growing, impressionable minds.
So was "The Duff" a classic moive? Hardly. After watching it even the first time I couldn't believe this movie was actually based off a book. The overall story just feel too weak to have been based off a book. What hooked me was the Bianca Piper performance as played by Mae Whitman. I bought her perforance hook, line and sinker. Better than Lindsay Lohan in "Mean Girls" better that Shanene Woodley in "The Spectacular Now".
Mae Whitman can act. Wow, can she ever act. She's the reason I went and saw "The Duff" two nights in a row.
Sure there are a lot of laughs, and ha-ha performances that worked in this story. HUGE fan of Romany Malco, who plays the principal in this story.
As for Bianca's two girlfriends at school, I felt screenwriter Josh A. Cagan and director Ari Sandal did a GREAT job of establishing them early, with their into's with Bianca Piper voice over narration explaining who they were, but after that they didn't seem like real people to me. Rather, it just felt like they JUST existed to be their for Piper.
Another huge logic gaff, from my point of view, was how Piper never figured out that someone was in the auidence at that mall clothing store fliming her with their cellphone's camera when she was having fun making out with the department store dummys pretending like that was Toby, Piper's love interest/crush. That gaff could have EASILY been rectified by having an instore security camera been taking footage of the people in the store, THEN having one of Madison's friends get a hold of that footage, put it on her iphone and boom go from there. Madison (Bella Thorne's character) is the main antagoinst in "The Duff"; she the prettiest girl at school who lords it over eveyone that she's around.
Most of the characters in "The Duff" are totally forgetable. The only one who truely sings is Bianca Piper. But her character is so mesmerising that it makes you forget about the other gaffs in the movie. The facial expressions that Mae Whitman is capable of of making at crical times in the story is worth the price of admission. Like I said earlier, best performace by an actress in a teenage role EVER!!!
Years ago I penned a script entittled, "Revenge of the Fat Chicks". That script dealt with a theme similar to the one dealt with in "The Duff". Knowing that was the case even before I went to see "The Duff", I was curious how similar our two stories were? Well-p, nothing to worry about Kody Keplinger I'm not going to cause you any trouble, in fact I'll be praying future successes for you, as you do have good knack for handling teen stories. "Revenge of the Fat Chicks" and "The Duff" are really quite different.
My story, "Revenge of the Fat Chicks" involves a cheerleader who defects from the rank of the popular to help the plight of her friends from her days when she was younger and was a "fat chick" herself. It's a play on high school stereotypes. But my approach angle is different that "The Duff" movie. Sorry Kody as of the time of this post I haven't read any of your books yet, but after this movie I'm really leaning in that direction. And I'm HOPING that the movie that was made off your novel opens the doors for movies like mine to ge made.
You see we're not all in competition here. There's room for much more. And hopefully following the release of "The Duff" Hollywood will want to make more movies with teen-based themes. They're just so important. Way more important, and can have more of an impact on society than the next "Transformers" movie, or the next "Avengers" installment.
So go see Kody Keplinger's "The Duff" as see for yourself whether or not Mae Whitman's performace as Bianca Piper is memorable. Hint-hint, it is!
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
P.S. Still hard at work on that whole epic fantasy novel re-writing thang. That critcal chapter 2 re-write has ballooned from 26 pages to 70 now--and I'm loving it! The new focus is starting to be the 2 major romance that kick off into high gear once the set-up is complete. LOTS of work to do there, but I'm willing and in process of doing it. More to come on that front in later posts...
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