WHIP IT
Drew Barrymore exists in a peculiar place in Hollywood. Granddaughter of Hollywood royalty, she grew up in front of the camera, and spent many troubling years in and out of drug use and failed relationships. In between all of that, she has managed to build an eclectic resume of films that has given her clout in her industry.
It’s nice to see she’s using that clout in impressive new ways.
Barrymore makes her directorial debut in Whip It, one of the few films to focus on the wild world of roller derbies. The film stars Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar, a 17 year old Texan girl dealing with her repressive mother (Marcia Gay Harden, does she play anything else?) and zoned out father (Daniel Stern) with the help of her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat). When the two girls sneak out to experience roller derby, Bliss gets sucked into the lifestyle with some previously unknown talent she has for the sport. The rest of the film deals with her emerging talents as she hides her new life from her family.
Page does another variation on the character she honed in films like Juno; smartassed, wise-cracking punk girl with a gooey little girl center. It’s a bit surprising that Page exhibits no sign of the Texas accent adopted by the other actors around her, and this makes her performance ring slightly false. Fortunately for Barrymore, she managed to surround this okay performance with a terrific cast, all of whom bring subtle nuances to their roles. It’s especially nice to see long-absent Juliette Lewis make a strong return as the “villain” of the film, a rival for Bliss named Iron Maven. I also liked the inventiveness of Gay Harden and Stern in what could have been very stereotypical roles. I could have done without Jimmy Fallon as a derby announcer, though, but I just don’t care for the guy in any of his performances.
Barrymore keeps the film light and frothy, but she also adds a very masculine undercurrent of physicality that really propels this film forward. She also keeps the directorial bells and whistles to a minimum, allowing the characters to take center stage. Despite this very strong effort, I wish Barrymore would have spent either more time or money to really capture the derby scenes on film; some of the shots are not very dynamic in these sequences, and some are just plain sloppy. Fortunately the derby scenes are a smaller portion of the whole, and they do not detract much from the storytelling.
The film didn’t make its budget back in theaters, but I sincerely hope the DVD market is kind to this underrated and underappreciated gem. Fans of fun, loose, and thoughtful storytelling need to support films just like this one.
