Whip It!

The few people who know me may be surprised that I went to see Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut in theaters, a cute “girl” movie about women being empowered by donning rollerskates and cute pseudonyms, but in my defense, I sneaked in to the movie, for one, and a few hours later my face was planted in between a pair of very lovely breasts. Anyways, I kind of liked the film. Whip It! is of course another Ellen Page vehicle, and whether or not you have interest in her movies, you have to admire her ability to be charismatically vulnerable. I never got around to seeing Juno, but I was impressed by her performance in Hard Candy, a movie that I hated on the whole (Patrick Wilson’s general awesomeness notwithstanding), and Whip It is another great showcase for Page’s talent.

The story of a teenage girl who joins an Austin Roller Derby team to escape from the oppressive genteelities of her mother’s southern beauty pageant culture, Whip It borrows from about every underdog-sports/coming-of-age formula there is, which would make the movie seem like little more than a checklist of cliches, if there wasn’t something more to it than that. The movie has a self-aware quality that is more than a little charming and plays like The Mighty Ducks meets Ghost World (a shame that the film’s ensemble cast had no room for the great Emilio Estevez and Steve Buscemi).

Also appearing in the movie is Daniel Stern as a lovable goof father that should be familiar to anyone who’s lived in the suburbs. You’ll also see a few familiar SNL cast members, the singer Eve, and the always uncontainable Juliette Lewis who plays the token arch-rival/bully in a performance that is comically, self-deprecatingly bitchy. All in all, Drew Barrymore’s film will be a delight for young female audiences, and even a few of us emotionally-dead older people may recall a time when movies were fun for the sake of fun.