Bianca Piper, (played by the always excellent Mae Whitman) is a whip-smart 17-year-old who spends her spare time writing for the school paper and watching old horror movies. She’s mortified when her neighbour and childhood friend Wesley (Robbie Amell) blithely calls her a DUFF – basically an approachable access point for guys who want to have sex with her super-hot friends Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca A. Santos.) Although it sounds like it’s a film based on an Urban Dictionary entry, this actually comes from a 2010 novel written by then-teenage author Kody Keplinger, which was praised at the time for taking a frank and mature approach to sex in a landscape of young adult literature that was littered with pro-abstinence Twilight descendants. The film, adapted by screenwriter Josh A. Cagan and produced by McG(!) is altogether more frothy. Cut for a 12A certificate in the UK, the sexual interactions don’t go too far beyond banter for much of the film, building up to a more conventional ending, (at the prom no less) as opposed to the rampant hook-up sex that ensues in the book. This is hardly the most unpredictable teen movie ever made, but it does deliver its tried and tested formula with some measure of wit and endearment. Elsewhere, Thorne channels Rachel McAdams’ Regina George from Mean Girls, a teen movie that has still yet to be equalled or surpassed in many ways, but makes for a solid antagonist. There’s also nice support from Alison Janney as Bianca’s bitterly divorced mother, and Ken Jeong, who’s closer to his character in the first season of Community here than he has been in any subsequent season of Community. On the down side, this is one of those up-to-the-moment comedies that leans way too heavily on social media. Sherlock style info bubbles pop and burst around the heads of students to represent various texts, tweets and YouTube posts and at points, it all feels reminiscent of the high school scenes in Jason Reitman’s woeful Men, Women & Children. This also relates to the other weak spot in the film, whereby Bianca decides to take out her indignation on Jess and Casey. While the scene in which the three of them histrionically swear that they’ll delete each other on Tumblr, Instagram and various other online sites rings true in a comedic sense, the motivation behind it doesn’t, especially when these are supposedly Bianca’s best mates and they’re completely baffled as to what this DUFF business is all about. The film’s general message of self-acceptance is one we’ve heard a million times before and might well make you roll your eyes when it’s monologued near the end, but on the basis of “You either know one, you have one or you are one” as a tagline, maybe it does need to be reiterated to the young audience that this is targeting. To quote Arrested Development, The DUFF is as Ann as the nose on Plain’s face, but perhaps the biggest surprise is how it transcends its lousy marketing campaign. As a post-modern teen movie that doffs its hat to John Hughes, it’s not quite up to the standard of a film like Easy A, but it’s comfortably an easy B minus. The DUFF is out now on DVD. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.