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The Duff | 2015 | PG-13 | - 5.3.5

A high school honor student (Mae Whitman) learns that she is the laughing stock of her fellow students for her smarts and lack of fashion style. Even her friends (Skyler Samuels and Bianca Santos) begin to cyber-bully her (she's labeled as DUFF, i.e. Designated Ugly Fat Friend) but she receives help from her long-time neighbor (Robbie Amell). Also with Ken Jeong, Nick Eversman, Allison Janney and Bela Thorne. Some phrases are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles and several cell phone conversations are captioned. Directed by Ari Sandel. [1:41]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - A teen boy and a teen girl go on a date at his house and she imagines him clearing the table onto the floor, laying her on it, lying on top of her and kissing her (we see her bare thighs and knees as he lies between them, and the sequence ends).
 A shirtless teen boy in a bedroom window kisses a teen girl wearing a bra and skirt; we see them in profile only (some cleavage above her bra is shown). A teen couple kiss for the first time and he says that he is more of a "tongue guy"; she asks if that means his tongue would go all the way through her and come out her bottom, like porn, and he laughs and asks how old the porn she watches is; she begins to kiss him and licks his cheek instead and he laughs.
 A teen girl pretends that a store dummy is her boyfriend; she pulls its arm off and rubs its hand on her breast, then kisses its mouth, sticks her tongue into its lips and rubs her groin on its abdomen while standing; she lies on top of the dummy on the floor briefly, puts her face to a mirror and sticks her tongue out to touch her own tongue in its image while another teen girl films all this action (unbeknownst to her), places it on a website and broadcasts it to everyone in the high school; in the cafeteria the next day a teen boy holds up a CPR dummy (includes only waist to head), kisses it, rubs it on his crotch and tells the girl that she can have it next.
 A teen girl kisses her ex-boyfriend in a corridor in front of another girl as she stares at her. A daydream features a teen couple kissing passionately for several seconds. A teen girl kisses a teen boy on the cheek. In a daydream, a teen girl says to a teen boy, "I want to make out with your face" and he replies, "Good, because my face wants to make out with you" and they kiss for several seconds. Two men kiss in an outtake as the end credits play.
 A daydream features a fake porno film in which a teen girl (the dreamer) and her male friend portray a woman (wearing a negligee top that reveals shoulders, arms and some cleavage) and a man (wearing tight swim trunks, baring his chest, shoulders, arms and legs); she makes a remark about wanting to have sex and answers the door to a teen boy with a pizza and diving gear as he looks into the camera and says, "I like to have sex with girls" and she looks into the lens and says, "I'm a girl," and they embrace and kiss passionately as the daydream ends.
 A teen girl is in a scoop neckline that reveals a little cleavage and a teen boy says, "Look at those!"; she pushes up her bosom with her hands and twerks the air for about 3 seconds, and then says, "Try to keep it in your pants!"
 A teen girl walks into the boy's locker room where we see many teen boys shirtless, in underwear that bares their thighs and legs and reveals a bulge at the groin area, or long towels to their ankles and revealing a few navels; one boy flexes his pectoral muscles at the girl, making her laugh and on a chalkboard in the back of the room he draws a penis and testicles, as he also draws table/seating arrangements for her to use on a date in order to persuade a boy to kiss her.
 Several teen girls wear cut-off midriff tops, with low-cut necklines and tight and/or low-rise jeans, shorts, or coveralls; some girls wear short-shorts and very short skirts (we see some abdomens, a few navels, and some cleavage). A teen girl wearing a short skirt reveals the bottoms of her buttocks as she walks away from the camera. On a cell phone video, a girl sitting in profile pushes up her skirt briefly to reveal lace panties. At a school dance, some teen girls wear low-cut dresses that reveal some cleavage, along with some short skirts that bare the leg from mid-thighs to ankles. A teen girl wears a backless top that is open in an inverted V from between her shoulder blades to her waistline. A teen girl wears a bandeau top that has a large bow on it, revealing midriff (no navel). A video game shows a cartoon woman wearing a tight dress and her breast and stomach jiggle. A teen boy helps a teen girl in a lingerie store to find bras, panties and a negligee (we see plastic busts of faceless women wearing fancy bras in the store).
 Three high school boys look at teen girls walking down a hallway and two of the boys talk about having sex with the girls in crude terms and a gay teen says that he would have sex with one of the girls, but he would not like it. We hear that a woman is divorced and her ex wanted the dog instead of their child. We hear that a man and a woman intend to divorce. We hear about a few breakups among high school students and about teen girls deciding how to approach teen boys for dates. A cell phone image has the hashtag #MyFutureBabyDaddy. At a food court, a woman asks a man if he has a wiener in his mouth or he is happy to see her; he looks confused and asks where the camera is (like for "Punked" or "Candid Camera"). A middle-aged woman signs up for four dating sites. A teacher in a high school hallway opens his classroom door and yells, "Get your finger out of there!" to a male student off-screen (we don't see where the finger is). A teen boy talks about another teen boy and a teen girl and asks if he can join them or watch (presumably in sex acts). A few songs have sexually suggestive lyrics.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A teen girl punches a male friend in the nose, but he is OK; he says that he punched a friend in the nose and we see a flashback of him pushing the friend against a concrete wall. A teen girl kisses a teen boy, then slaps his face in a playful manner.
 A teen girl knocks books out of another girl's arms in a school corridor and walks on. A teen girl spills a food tray on a teen boy's lap. In two scenes, a young woman tosses a glass of soda onto a male friend's shirt and walks away.
 Three high school girls argue loudly in the library, unfriending each other from a dozen social media sites. All the students in a school laugh at a schoolmate after she was filmed playing with a store dummy and the video goes viral; the principal tells a teacher about the hallways and classrooms, "It's like a prison yard out there!" and they confiscate all cell phones, iPads and other digital media from every student. We hear the muffled, yelling voices of a man, a woman and a teen boy inside a house. A teen girl spends her days sitting in corners at school, talking to herself and others say that she is a basket case.
 While on a date with a 21-year-old man, a teen girl has hallucinations of her teenage male friend interrupting them and making fun of the older man; she goes into a bathroom and screams into the camera, then asks herself if she is into the male friend and after returning to her date, she learns that he is interested in her two beautiful friends and not in her; she becomes angry and leaves.
 A horror show on TV depicts a zombie with huge teeth and bloody lips biting flesh from the bloody arms of someone whose body is off-screen. A cartoonish movie poster shows a buxom green-skinned zombie covered in blood and missing a foot.
 In two scenes, a young woman threatens to murder her male friend and in another scene, she says she will rip off his genitals. A female student speaks to her Spanish teacher in a corridor in Spanish and says, "We will drink the blood of all the other classes." A teacher says that the cafeteria causes pizza-induced diabetes.
 A teenage girl in a class makes a "gag me" gesture with her finger, but does not vomit. A teen girl burps loudly. We hear that a teen boy smells like trash.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word and 1 F-word derivative ("WTF" as a one-word caption under the image of a male teacher) along with a couple of bleeped F-words during the end credit reel, 8 sexual references, 10 scatological terms, 27 anatomical terms (teens use the slang term "Amazeballs" 4 times, but it does not seem to reference body parts), 20 mild obscenities, name-calling (DUFF, DIFF Queen, ugly, fat, narc, stupid crazy, idiot, weird, loser, smart[anatomical term deleted], juvenile, party pooper, pervy, whore, heinous beast, bully, nerd, basket case, jock, geek, princess, man-whore, Wreck It Ralph, Bela Lugosi, Swamp Thing, Chatty Cathy), stereotypical references to teenagers, mean girls, jocks, nerds, bullies, homosexuals, "pretty girls are not smart," "female beauty is power," parents, teachers, high school principals, divorcees, motivational speakers, Asians, African Americans, Glee Club, Goths, exclamations (wow), 14 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, Dear God, God, Hallelujah).

SUBSTANCE USE - A girl in a high school chemistry class says that another girl will probably drink the acid in her test tube (it does not occur), a teen girl says that another teen girl in her high school is on antidepressants, and a teen football player says that some of his friends asked him if he was on steroids when he punched a friend. We see underage drinking at high school party and there are plastic cups of beer and alcoholic punch, a teen girl serves Jell-O® shots (no one swallows them) and Beer Pong is played in the background (no drinking is seen) at a party, a woman riding a lawn mower over her ex's clothing holds a glass of wine and cries, and a young man in chemistry class tells a teen girl that if you mix red and white wines you get rosé.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Labeling people, using people, bullying, cyber-bullying, divorce, intelligence, fashion sense, independence, sports scholarships, high school cliques, high school stereotypes.

MESSAGE - Social media escalates teen problems of mercurial relationships, poor body image, and bullying, especially for girls.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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