Whip It (***½)
Directed by: Drew Barrymore Starring: Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, Ari Graynor, Eve, Andrew Wilson
Seen: December 24th 2009
***½ Out of ****
Whip It is very close to fitting into the general sports-movie mould, but there are small things littering the movie taking it out of the quagmire of the usual and elevating it to something better and much more fun. The humour is so finely placed, pervasive and heartfelt that on its own it would warm your heart and make you walk out of the cinema with a smile. The smaller characters are also well-developed, to such an extent in fact, that you can’t help but worry about their fate as well, even that of the most limited of fringe characters.
Bliss Cavendar (Page) is a young Blue Bonnet pageant participant, for her mother’s (Gay Harden) sake. She could not care less and you clearly see this in (among other things) her dress-code away from these pageants: no beauty queen would dress this way; army boots, metal-band T-shirts, and thick-framed glasses. One day while shopping for a pair of said army boots, a few weird-looking girls roller-skate into the shop and leave some flyers on the counter. She takes one, of course, and is interested from the get go: Roller Derby. This is as a matter of fact a real sport where women form teams that mix violence and roller-skating (for more details, be sure to see the movie...), and the young Bliss follows the advice of one of these ladies; Maggie Mayhem (Wiig, borrowing the name the writer of Whip It, Shauna Cross, used as a Roller Derby contestant) and goes for try-outs in an apparent quest to eventually become her own hero.
She turns out to be talented and joins the team – where she changes her name to Babe Ruthliss, something of a tradition in the arena, where names include Iron Maven (Lewis, taking the stage name of another real-lifer, who in turn plays one of the mute Manson sisters), Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Eva Destruction (Graynor), Rosa Sparks (Eve), Bloody Holly, and teams like the Hurl Scouts, The Fight Attendants, and more. Bliss joins up without her parent’s (and in particular her controlling mother) permission, and yes, we do know what happens next – parents find out, problems ensue, resolution is found. Thing is, with Whip It the getting there is so much more important than there itself. And getting there also happens in a way that is pretty unique for these kinds of uplifting sports movies. Some conventions are firmly kept in place, but some others are completely thrown away, and this is seriously refreshing to see.
Whip It is without a doubt one of the most fun movies you’ll see all year, as Ellen Page is always a refreshing blast of excellence, and here she is also brilliantly supported by Shawkat (playing Bliss’ best friend Pash), Wiig (a great comedic actress), Barrymore herself, Andrew Wilson as Razor, the Hurl Scouts’ fantastically dry coach, Marcia Gay Harden as her mother and Daniel Stern as her sweetly doting father, to name but a few. This is one movie that truly works on just about every level, and little jokes will have you laughing all the way through. If this is Barrymore as a director, I strongly urge her to continue, and using Page as a lead character is also inspired, this girl can do anything. Go see Whip It, you’ll not be disappointed.
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