Mean Girls it ain’t, but then again, what is? Mae Whitman gives it her kooky best shot as high-school misfit Bianca, who comes to believe that she’s the “Designated Ugly Fat Friend” in an otherwise glamorous trio, and enlists ripped jock neighbour Wes (Robbie Amell) to improve her social standing. The set-up (from Kody Keplinger’s novel) is oddly unconvincing (is this Duff-stuff really even a thing?), but Whitman goes with it in engaging post-Pretty in Pink fashion, racking up a few outsider laughs along the way. Allison Janney adds heft as our heroine’s pant-suited divorce-guru mum, her presence acting as a talismanic indication of higher aspirations.
