Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, drug references and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.1.09
Buy DVD: Whip It
• Buy Blu-Ray: Capitalism: Whip It [Blu-ray]
OK, this is the most fun you can have on eight wheels.
Drew Barrymore makes a smashing directorial debut with Whip It, one of the best misfit underdog sagas in recent memory ... and mind you, we've seen quite a few lately.
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| Having earned a nickname -- Babe Ruthless -- and a place on the Hurl Scouts roller derby team, Bliss (Ellen Page, center) prepares for a competitive move with the assistance of teammates Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore, left) and Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig). |
The highly entertaining roller derby-oriented drama is deftly adapted by author and former Los Angeles Derby Doll Shauna Cross from her own novel, which just landed on my must-read pile. The reason: Given the pains Cross takes to flesh out every character in this script, her book must be even better.
In fairness, Barrymore and the cast also deserve a lot of credit. Rarely will you find so many parts filled so perfectly, and casting directors Justine Baddeley and Kim Davis-Wagner deserve a standing ovation of their own. Consider: Once our mousy young heroine decides to re-invent herself as a roller-skating, bad-ass wannabe, who else but Juliette Lewis should play the snarling skate-babe who causes the most grief?
More than anything else, though, Barrymore and star Ellen Page — delivering even more on the promise she showed in Hard Candy
and Juno
— are to be congratulated for playing straight with a subject that invites the same reflexive howls of derision usually reserved for TV wrestling bouts. The "sport" of roller derby, generally little more than a punchline, certainly didn't gain any respect in the wake of the only other high-profile Hollywood production that leaps to mind, 1972's hilariously inept Kansas City Bomber
. (Raquel Welch on skates. What more need be said?) Barrymore and Cross obviously intended to change that perception, and they succeed with a heart-tugging first act that makes us embrace all the key players before roller skates are even seen, let alone worn.
Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, a shy and introverted girl whose life in the truck-stop town of Bodeen, Texas, swings between two ghastly extremes: waitressing at the Oink Joint, home of "The Squealer" — a massive sandwich that remains free of charge for any diner able to consume it in less than 3 minutes — and dressing up in cotillion-style gowns to please her beauty pageant-obsessed mother, Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden), who dreams of seeing the Miss Blue Bonnet Pageant crown on her elder daughter's head.
No doubt about it: Life is hell.
There are compensations. Bliss' easy-going father (Daniel Stern, as Earl) is the laid-back yin to her mother's uptight yang, and he has a few surprises buried within his still waters. In a film laden with sweet moments, one of the best is a father/daughter chat that occurs after Bliss discovers one of Earl's best-kept secrets: a revelation that is sweet in its own right.
