Whip It has some nice performances

Whip It

Directed by Drew Barrymore

Screenplay by Shauna Cross, based on her own novel

Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern, Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat, Juliette Lewis, Andrew Wilson

In the wake of the phenomenon that was Juno, Ellen Page was nominated for an academy award.  She was on a nice little roll, with her harrowing performance in Hard Candy, Page seems like the next big thing.  Whip It finds her working in what plays like an celluloid sandbox for actress and director Drew Barrymore.  And it feels like she is rolling her wheels just a bit.  This movie is nice, with some good performances.  It’s just, except for spots, hers is not one of them.

This movie covers the obscure phenomenon that is Roller Derby.   It’s a nice little sport that involves skating in a round with a little big time wrestling thrown in.  I have never quite understood its appeal, but that is irrelevant for purposes of this film.  This film uses the rolling entertainment only as a vehicle for the story.

The story is a typical kid from a little town looking to get out of a rut.  In this case the rut is the parade of beauty pageants that Page’s character, Bliss, is pushed to by her mother (Marcia Gay Harden).  To go through the motions of what gets her from point A (pageants) to point B (the rink) is of little note, as it is bereft with clichés and embarrassingly trite moments.  When her mother is brought by Bliss to a store that sells drug paraphernalia to buy used army style boots.  Her mother goes from ignorance to knowing veteran of the drug scene in too short a time to be believed.  Bliss walks around, dressed in a “rebel-lite” set up, replete with a Stryper t-shirt that she lifted from her mother.  The first time she heads to Austin to watch the Derby, she and her friend discuss the fact that they are lying to their parents for the first time.  At seventeen?  Yeah.

Once the derby enters the picture, things start to pick up, here and there.  Kristin Wiig takes the opportunity to move to a new realm with her performance as a single mom whose sole expression of rage against her circumstance is taken out in the ring.  Hers is a distinctively original and ultimately believable portrayal.

Andrew Wilson is a lovable earnest coach of their losing team that dreams to one day win through drawn up plays.  Wilson is the third in the talented group of brothers (the other two, Luke and Owen) that somehow has escaped notice in a big way to this point.  His talent is shown to be considerable as he makes the most of his limited role here.

Daniel Stern makes a nice return here as Bliss’s affable and non-confrontational dad.  Looking over his resumé since Celtic Pride, it’s clear that he has been out of the mainstream.  It’s just hard for me to figure out why.  The guy is one likable actor.

Page has some good moments in this film, and some questionable ones.  The quirky interplay between her and her friends outside the rink seem forced and somewhat unbelievable.

This slows the movie to a crawl at times.  It feels in these scenes that Page is following some odd instructions here, or just ignoring her instincts.  On the plus side, her interplay with her mom at a pretty crucial moment in the film seems natural and cigarette-worthy.

For her part, Drew Barrymore shows no original skill behind the camera.  The desire is there, but there is literally nothing here that has not been done better elsewhere.  To say that she should give up directing, though, would be like saying Clint Eastwood should have stopped after making of The Beguiled.  The soundtrack, however, seems to be a particular point of emphasis of Whip It.  She has a 58 song playlist in the movie, and she uses them like her own personal playground.  This results in some nice moments, like her training montage to .38 Special’s Caught Up In You.

For this, and the other songs, along with the general fun of the performances, the movie is worth watching.

*** out of  *****