The Duff

From Heathers and The Breakfast Club to Mean Girls, tales of adolescent outcasts navigating the teenage jungle of American high school have been a teen-flick stalwart. While this latest entry in the Pygmalion with Clearasil genre doesn't bring anything new to the table, it's still fun enough to hang out with for a while. It follows Bianca (Mae Whitman), initially branded a "DUFF" (the Designated Ugly Fat Friend), whose role in the social hierarchy is to act as a gateway to her more interesting and dateable pals. But she is transformed into a prom princess under the tutelage of her jock best friend (a mostly likeable Robbie Amell) which makes the sexual politics hopelessly confused. A film supposedly about "being yourself" still insists that, for teenage girls, the most important achievement in school is peer approval and a socially acceptable boyfriend. This lack of originality is compensated for by snappy dialogue, energetic direction and great support from, among others, The West Wing's Allison Janney as Bianca's ditzy mom.