Whip It Review

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 10.02.2009

Can Drew Barrymore whip it, whip it good?

Directed by Drew Barrymore
Written by Shauna Cross

Cast
Ellen Page ... Bliss Cavendar/Babe Ruthless
Marcia Gay Harden ... Brooke Cavender
Daniel Stern ... Earl Cavender
Kristen Wiig ... Maggie Mayhem
Alia Shawkat ... Pash
Landon Pigg ... Oliver
Juliette Lewis ... Iron Maven
Drew Barrymore ... Smashly Simpson
Eve ... Rosa Sparks
Zo¸ Bell ... Bloody Holly
Ari Graynor ... Eva Destruction
Andrew Wilson ... Razor
Jimmy Fallon ... "Hot Tub" Johnny Rocket
Eulala Grace Scheel ... Shania Cavendar
Carlo Alban ... Birdman

Rated PG-13 for sexual content including crude dialogue, language and drug material.
Run Time: 111 min.

Whip It Fox Searchlight Official Website



Whip It is Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut and it shows. While the movie looks like a lot of fun, it is a mess that too many problems to work on any level.

Ellen Page is Bliss, a seventeen year old girl stuck in the small hick town of Bodeen, Texas with no seeming way out. She works at a pig stand with her best friend Pash and constantly faces the scrutiny of her classmates, who seem content with the life they have been dealt. Her mother is a pageant mom (Marcia Gay Harden), forcing both her daughters to enter local pageants and taking any loss as a slight on herself. All Bliss wants is to find something she loves that helps her fit in somewhere. That comes in the form of the upcoming roller derby league in close-by Austin.

The movie wants to be a lot of things. On one hand, it is a coming-of-age story about a girl breaking out of the small town prison she finds herself in. On the other hand, it is an underdog story with Bliss joining The Hurl Scouts, a team that never wins and doesn’t seem to care until Bliss helps ignite the spark that leads them to the championship.

The story itself is full of problems with the main one being Bliss is a seventeen year old high school girl. I can get behind Bliss chasing her dreams but the fact she does it in such an underhanded way I have a hard time supporting her decisions. She runs away from home, hides everything from her mother, turns her back on her best friend, and eventually loses her virginity to an Indie rocker. Then to reward this behavior, everything works out for her at the end. It is an immoral tale that rewards poor behavior. If she was eighteen, I could have overlooked this but this is not real life, this is a movie available for kids (PG-13). It is irresponsible storytelling and Barrymore should have known better.

Bliss deserves everything she gets at the end but the way she gets there is poorly executed. That is my main problem with the storyline but the film itself is a jumbled mess taking us from one instance to another without proper flow or reasoning. Someone needs to teach Barrymore the proper usage of transitions because she doesn’t execute any here. Barrymore’s shot choices are also suspect, none more so than the instances where Bliss makes goo-goo eyes at her Indie rock flame Oliver. Just about every scene leading up to their hookup was shot as close ups of them looking blissfully at each other. It was, to be blunt, disgustingly melodramatic.

That is Barrymore’s biggest fault in this movie. She shoots it as a sentimental reproach on small town America but makes it look as generic as possible. She goes overboard on the melodrama, from the connection between Bliss and Oliver to her eventual winning over of her mother. It is hard to make a statement on “good ole’ middle America” when nothing new is brought to the table.

Ellen Page was a revelation in Juno and her character in this movie seems like a bland version of that strong willed girl. Page has a great future in Hollywood to look forward to but this movie does not bring out her strong points. Marcia Gay Harden is also wasted as her mother, a postal carrier who wants her daughters to have the life she never had. The mother/daughter dynamic is what works best in this movie but since we are asked to side with Page’s Bliss and Harden plays her mother as such a dominating, hardnosed character, it is difficult to take either side. Bliss’ best friend Pash is underplayed by Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) and I found myself not caring about her character which hurt one very important moment in the movie where she was asked to carry the load. Finally, real life musician Landon Pigg was horrible as Bliss’ romantic interest. He was all doe eyes and drooped shoulders and you never once want her to end up with him.

There are wonderful characters to like such as Kristen Wigg (Extract, Adventureland), in yet another solid performance, as the roller girl who also happens to be a mother. She brings the only realistic adult point of view to the movie and is also very funny (there is a great dialogue exchange about crabs). Daniel Stern is also great in his supporting role as the “supportive father.” Also very funny is the head coach, played by Wes Anderson regular Andrew Wilson (brother of Luke and Owen). These characters are, unfortunately, offset by extremely bad characters such as Jimmy Fallen’s unfunny commentator, Carlo Alban’s annoying Birdman and Drew Barrymore as a roller girl with a few loose screws.

I like how the movie takes us to unexpected areas such as the finals of the roller derby championship, although how Bliss got there was as unoriginal as anything I have seen in a movie in ages. The script also makes the right choice to make no one the villain. There are three people who could be prime candidates as the bad guy of the movie but none of them are that bad at the end. It is a nice unconventional end for a pretty bad movie.

The 411: Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with Whip It and if it is any indication of what we can expect from her work behind the camera, she should stick to acting. She brings a lot of enthusiasm to the project and it looks like all the girls in the movie are having the time of their lives. I am positive the DVD will have lots of behind the scenes features showing the fun they had on set, from food fights to the roller derby matches themselves. The acting is subpar with the exception of a few key performances (Kristen Wiig, Daniel Stern) and Ellen Page has done much better over her short career. Her supporting cast is hit or miss with her friends at home and her love interest dragging the movie down. Finally, Barrymore makes some bad choices as a director, hurting the tempo and flow of the movie. I could recommend this movie to fans of roller derby but, for everyone else, there is nothing to see here that has not been done better in dozens of other movies.

Final Score:  3.0   [ Bad ]