Barrymore aglow!
Whip It
Directed by Drew Barrymore
USA
By Rachel West
Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with the ensemble film Whip It, which follows one girl’s odyssey through the Texas roller derby circuit.
A chick flick on wheels, Whip It tells the tale of misfit Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) trying to find a place to fit in, in her suburban Texas town. Not one for the beauty pageants her former beauty queen mother (Marcia Gay Harden) has her competing in, Bliss is turned on to the world of the bad ass chicks in the roller derby circuit. With inifinitely more grrrl power than pageants can offer, the striking ladies of the Hurl Scouts derby team have Bliss enamoured with the sport. Lying about her age, Bliss makes the team and enters the world of the over-21 derby, balancing her boring home life with her wild nights on the skating track as Babe Ruthless.
Triple-threat actress, producer, and director Barrymore is impossibly hard not to like, especially after hearing her speak at the film’s world premiere. She is genuinely grateful and excited to unleash Whip It on the world. Unfortunately, Whip It never rises to the challenge. That’s not due to Barrymore’s directing skills, but rather to a ho-hum plot. The film’s not bad by any means, but it’s just not that great either. Adapted from the novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, Whip It has a solid block of material to work with, but the film stops short of actually taking off beyond presenting a pastiche of the usual problems teen girls face in the movies: the cheating boyfriend, best friend issues, career path choices, and maternal bonding. The only spin is that it’s all done on wheels. Without this unique angle, the storyline is simply your run-of-the-mill after school special about finding one’s identity and all that comes with being 17 years old.
The roller derby scenes are expertly directed and feature so much speed and action, I am sure the Toronto Roller Derby League is going to have dozens of new converts to the sport, each with a feisty skater name. Whip It features some serious stunts and superb skating by the ladies of the film who jump, block, and check each other like seasoned rugby players. With an all-star ensemble cast featuring Ellen Page, Juliette Lewis, rapper Eve, Daniel Stern, Marcia Gay Harden, Alia Shawkat, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon, and Barrymore herself, Whip It’s best scenes take place on the roller skating track.
Ellen Page’s character Bliss isn’t too far removed from her role in Juno, but with a lot less sass, and is ultimately less annoying. Page, however, is a great actress, which is one of the main reasons Whip It is endearing and entertaining. Page’s expressive face simply and believably conveys the complex tangle of emotions that make up Bliss’ teenage life.
The breakout star of Whip It would have to be Saturday Night Live comedienne Kristen Wiig, who moves away from comedy and plays one of the straightest characters in the film, Malice in Wonderland. Wiig gets a chance here to shine outside of farces like The Brothers Solomon in a leading role which she deftly handles with as much grace and charm one could muster on roller skates. Juliette Lewis as Dinah Might is a formidable foe for the Hurl Scouts, taking bitchy cat fights to a whole new level in the contact sport. Moving from behind the camera, Barrymore plays Smashley Simpson, one of the Hurl Scouts, to a stoner-comic hilt. She is no princess of a director, subjecting herself to the same brutal stunts as the rest of the cast — and looking like she has a great time doing it.
Barrymore also makes the rules of roller derby easy to understand, which is a great benefit to the film, as it’s easy to get in on the action. And it’s the roller derby scenes that help break the film out of its conventional mould. It is a shame that the rest of the movie doesn’t quite reach the levels of excitement and interest that the derby sequences ignite. The film is also not as funny as one might expect with the likes of Wiig and Fallon in the cast. The laughs that are in the film are too few and far between, and never amount to more than a slight chuckle.
All told, Whip It is a solidly entertaining film, it just isn’t groundbreaking cinema. Barrymore delivered a well-packaged film for her first effort behind the camera, and, hopefully, this won’t be her last.
