Movie Review - Whip It

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Hollywood continues to mine the depths of off-brand sporting events in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It.  This time out, the sport is roller derby.  For the uninitiated, the sport takes place on an oval track where teams of (more often than not) woman roller skate in formation.  Points are scored as appointed members pass the other women on the field.  Though the sport has been around (in various incarnations) since the 1920s, its contemporary version comes with a punk rock aesthetic.  The ladies often wear costumes reminiscent of rockabilly or burlesque and they compete using pun filled pseudonyms like Midwife Crisis and Mayor Francis Slayer.  The whole thing is a post-feminist cocktail of action, adrenaline and attitude.  Ellen Page stars as Bliss, a 17-year old high school student stuck in the small town of Bodean, Texas.  She and her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) long to escape the crushing conformity that so often comes with Main Street, USA.  Bliss participates in beauty pageants in order to appease her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) but, at heart, she's alternative (as in "rock" not "lifestyle").  When happenstance introduces her to the world of roller derby, she is immediately smitten.  She knows nothing of the sport but instantly knows it's where she wants to be.  So she breaks her Barbie skates out of storage and begins practicing for the try-outs where, she discovers, she's an extraordinarily fast skater.  Bliss is taken in by The Hurl Scouts, the last team in the league standings.  Her fellow teammates Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Rosa Sparks (Eve), Smashley Simpson (Barrymore) and Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell) are rag-tag bunch lead by their coach Razor (Andrew Wilson).

To say that Whip It trades in sports movie clichés would be more than a bit of an understatement.  An underestimated team of underdogs, come from behind victories, training montages o’ plenty - they're all there.  But if there’s any genre where clichés can be overlooked, it’s sports movies.  After all, there are only two possible outcomes; the good guy(s) lose (Rocky, The Bad News Bears) or the good guy(s) win (pretty much every other sports movie ever).  And while the movie deals with a lesser known sport, it doesn’t mock the game itself such as films like Dodgeball or Balls of Fury.  Instead the film serves as an avenue for female empowerment though not in an “eat your vegetables” kind of way.  The movie is first and foremost a comedy.  And, by and large, it works on that level.

Ellen Page (as Bliss) is probably best known as Juno.  Her performance here is not nearly as strong as in that film.  She feels hamstrung by that Juno, as if she’s trying desperately not to repeat the performance even when the film calls for it.  Bliss is the character we’re rooting for, our entry point into this world, but so much of the charm Page exhibited in Juno is muffled here.  The film revolves around Bliss lying about her age in order to participate in roller derby.  It’s a plot point that becomes increasingly problematic as the film progresses.  Bliss begins dating Oliver (Landon Pigg), the lead singer of a local band.  He’s apparently older than her since he doesn’t go to school and is able to go on tour with his band.  There’s an extended (and exasperating) scene where they have their first “encounter” in a swimming pool.  It takes place in slow-motion, entirely underwater, in what I can only refer to as an ode to statutory rape*.  Underwater dalliances are the sort of thing that look good on film but in real life just lead to chafing.  Adding to my annoyance with the scene is that Bliss gets almost completely naked only for us to see that, after months of roller derby, she was completely without bruises.

Later in the film, Bliss chastises Oliver because he doesn't call her while he's on the road with his band.  Exactly what number should have called her on?  The pay phone that she called him from earlier in the movie?  She clearly doesn’t have a cell phone as she left him a message to call HER back on another character’s cell phone.  And let’s face it; calling the home phone of the underage girl you're nailing is probably not a good idea.  But, um, yeah...she stood up for herself…hooray for girl power…grrrrrrrrr.

Perhaps the weakest parts of the film are the actual roller derby sequences.  The sport appears to be fast paced and exciting, though you’d never be able to tell from watching this film.  The scenes are shot in such a claustrophobic manner that it’s virtually impossible to discern what’s going on.  Make no mistake; there are things to like in the film.  Kristen Wiig is wonderful as always (what’s it gonna take for her to get a lead role) and Shawkat is good as Bliss’s best friend.  So good in fact that, if she’s not careful, she might fall into the Judy Greer-trap and spend the remainder of her career playing the perennial “best friend.”  And the script is funny in spots and endearing in others.  But little things, like the swimming pool scene, just kept chipping away at any good will the film managed to amass.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Slap Shot and 1 being Xanadu, Whip It gets a 6.

*Technically, the age of consent in Texas is 17**.

**Just for the record, I looked it up.  I didn’t know that off the top of my head***.

***You’re all my witnesses if/when my wife asks why an “age of consent” Google search is in our computer’s history cache.

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