In terms of high school movies, this movie is the DUFF. There are more attractive, interesting, exciting, less predictable, and better told stories out there. That said, I liked this charming little rom-com quite a lot, and had it been the only one of its kind then this easily could have been a strong 8. It's funny, it's cute, and it's got a lot to like.But then, the negatives: there's not a single original thing in this movie. It's just so utterly derivative of all the mean-girls / rom-coms in existence it's practically textbook stuff. There's just nothing new here, and in fact it's all just one rom-com trope after another, which doesn't sit that well with me.Sure there's the cyber bullying issue, but it's basically glossed over in the most superficial way as to make really no difference to the movie. But if you're willing to overlook the fact that it's taken all the best bits from all the other movies of its ilk, then this is actually a surprisingly heartwarming little movie. I was incredibly disappointed with the ending, but I guess that it was inevitable from the very start. I should have known better than to expect anything else from this kind of movie.6/10. Could do better. The two leads are great, in fact the entire cast is great. Ultimately, I guess when you're buying bubblegum you expect to get bubblegum, and that's exactly what you're getting here. The DUFF needs a few original ideas, but overall, watchable on a rainy day.

I enjoy watching teen movies to see what the young generation is up to. This movie gives the modern sensibility on final year high school students wading through the confusing labyrinth of romance and dating mingled with the vicissitudes of friendship. All with the absence of any help from adults, who generally are causing more stress than they are helping out. Feel good entertainment even if there is a little too much voice-over needed to explain what Bianca is going through.

High school movies are almost always fun. They are completely over the top, because the kind of teen drama in movies doesn't exist in real life, at least not in this form, at least not where I am from. That kind of drama wouldn't suit in a movie, it's not extremely cinematic. (Our drama is so much more vaguer like there was a period that lasted over a month where about four people didn't talk to other five people because both groups thought the other group was angry, while it turned out nobody was angry at anyone.) So, The DUFF has all the highlights of cinematic high school drama: there are brutally mean people, there are so many embarrassing things the main character does that make the viewer want to shut their eyes from all that. It has the kind of pop culture and social media references that won't mean anything in ten years, probably. Some of those are outdated even know. Honestly, they refer to Robert Pattinson, who was in, like, five years ago or something! Someone who never lived through the Twilight phase doesn't necessarily get that. Of course The DUFF also has all the annoying little things in high school movies. Some people hate these things, some people love them because they are so tacky, but I don't know anyone who would say they like this stuff unironically. First of all, plot structure. While after five minutes you can't predict every turn in the movie, it's super easy to see what will happen next, how a certain scene will turn out. The structure is always the same in these movies. Sure, it's kind of fun to predict the events with your friends or so on, but it gets annoying. Another annoying little thing: everyone is the wrong age. Come on, Mae Whitman and Robbie Amell are both almost 30, and they are playing high school students. Why?While this movie typically has am emphasis on teenage romance and crushes, I love how eventually it's about Whitman's character coming to terms with who she is and just... loving herself the way she is, instead of the DUFF being all about Bianca getting the guy or something like that. I think every high school movie, Mean Girls, Clueless, all the others, are mostly focused on the love story and not enough on girls loving themselves and all that. It just was a nice change in the typical story. And it wasn't even just subtext it was exactly how it was. Also typically high school movies love stereotypes and being loyal to them - this means they can have one character outside the stereotypes (usually the main character) and then two-dimensional simple supporting characters. But most of the stereotypes are shattered in the DUFF. Sure, Bianca's neighbour Wes is a jock but there's more to him than that. There are a lot of characters outside stereotypes, or at least their cliques are very hard to place. It's refreshing to see characters instead of stereotypes.The DUFF has probably as many good things as it does bad things. It's refreshing from its typical genre, but it still follows too many clichés. It's an average movie at best, even if it's better than most modern high school movies.

A teenage movie that obviously will play out one way or another depending on whether you like those or not. It's pretty witty and it has some genuine jokes in it (not to mention some very funny supporting cast to boot with). The story itself is as in many cases, very predictable. You know who the real "target" of affection is going to be.But the movie is able to win one over, if you buy into the whole light heartiness of the movie. The movie as some before it is very self aware and there are many in jokes in this. It's also refreshing to see the main girl being a horror movie fan. It's also interesting to see how much PG-13 movies have evolved over the years and how much more is allowed to be said in them. All in all, a lot of fun