Movie review: Whip It

Movies about teenagers who have been repressed by their fuddy duddy, conservative parents/guardians/authority figures are too numerous to list.

The formula is always the same – “good” kid latches on to some sort of activity that the parents would find objectionable, so he/she sneaks away to participate in said activity until the parents inevitably find out about it.

But in the end, the parents see that their kid has found something they love, something that’s not really that bad anyway, and the parents find a way to support the kid's new life.

Like any kind of formulaic film, Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, shouldn’t be judged on originality (because it has next to none) but on how well it executes its well-worn story. Things are promising at first as the action centers around a relatively unfamiliar movie topic – roller derby.

Bliss (Ellen Page, continuing her quirky movie name tour), lives in the fictional Bodeen, Texas, which is supposedly just outside of Austin. She has a beauty pageant-obsessed mother (Marcia Gay Harden), a football-lovin’ father (Daniel Stern), and a crappy job at a low-rent BBQ joint alongside her best friend, Pash (Alia Shawkat of Arrested Development fame).

On a shopping trip to Austin, Bliss finds out about a forthcoming roller derby match and convinces Pash to sneak away with her. One glimpse of the violent girl-on-girl action and Bliss is hooked. Soon she’s finding ways to make the trek to the big city to try and compete against people like Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), and Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis), despite being a good four years younger than the required age of participation, 21. For the rest of the story, see the first paragraph.

Barrymore and screenwriter Shauna Cross (who also wrote the novel upon which the film is based) have an obvious affinity for roller derby, but their combined lack of behind-the-camera experience shows in a big way. Much of the film is poorly paced and edited – some scenes linger when they need to move on, while some are cut off before their natural conclusion. The film clocks in at a robust 115 minutes, which is about 20 minutes too long. Consequently, events that might be considered interesting become excruciating to watch.

The film is full of odd little filmmaking curiosities that more experienced people would have excised. For example, several times throughout the movie, a character says something while walking off screen, a fading audio technique that frustrates because what the character says is more often than not a punchline the scene could have used. Then there’s the casting of real-life singer Landon Pigg as Bliss’ indie rocker love interest, Oliver. While Pigg may be a talented musician, he is, to put it lightly, not a looker (the role needed someone more attractive to be believable), and his acting is even worse – his reaction to a slap is so off-the-mark, it’s comical, and not in a good way.

What should be the film’s selling point – the roller derby action – is also botched. With such a fast-paced game, it works better visually to shoot it mostly from a wide angle. But Barrymore often takes the camera right into the scrum, and what is obviously an attempt to give the film more intensity has more of a detrimental effect. There are a few good moments of collision, but most of the matches are staged in such a way as to make them feel like little more than an open skating session (although it should be said that all of the stars appear to be pretty good skaters). They take the time to overtly explain the rules of the game not once but twice, but since the matches are filmed so poorly, understanding how and why one team wins is like trying to catch air.

Page is nowhere near Juno-esque as Bliss, but not for a lack of trying (Bliss has an ironic love for a t-shirt of the ‘80s Christian metal band Stryper). There’s a temptation to blame her performance on Barrymore and Cross, but their respective directing and writing flubs can’t fully account for her seemingly phoning it in.

Harden and Stern are in Texas accent overdrive, which would be fine if they weren’t the only ones doing it. Wiig and Shawkat acquit themselves well, but they’re balanced out by the shockingly inept showings of Lewis and Barrymore herself.

And that's not to mention the inane ramblings of Jimmy Fallon as the MC for the matches – not one of his supposed jokes hits the mark, making his constant chatter all the more irritating. What should have been a fun movie about a girl discovering her true passion in life becomes bogged down in filmmaking ineptitude. Whip It? No good.