Premise: Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) spends her small Texas town days unwillingly competing in beauty pageants and waiting tables at the local Tasty Freeze. She is also hating every minute of it. While visiting Austin, Bliss picks up a flyer promoting a local roller derby match. Before long she is lying about her age and joining up with the Hurl Scouts (great name and outfits by the way), without the knowledge or consent of her parents of course.
Whip It, the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore, can quite possibly best be described as October Sky that substitutes rocket launching with roller derby. A kid goes against the wishes of her parents in search of an alternative form of happiness. Once the deception angle is revealed there is an argument resulting in a temporary separation, until the unsung parent steps between their spouse and child and convinces the two to compromise. This film's unoriginality is one of its very few drawbacks, but there is still plenty to admire about this one.
The entire cast is surprisingly well put together. Page is very good as the glum teen looking for a life change, and finds it in alter ego Babe Rutheless. However this ought to be the last time she plays a seventeen year old considering she has been doing it for about five years. Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern are a great match as parents in conflict (she is the defiant one, he is the pushover). The team consists of fine actresses with even finer stage names such as Kristen Wiig (Maggie Mayhem) the supportive motherly figure, Zoe Bell (Bloody Holly) from Grindhouse is the fast & fancy skater, and even Barrymore herself wisely takes a much smaller role as ditzy Smashly Simpson. A girl that's been hit hard maybe one too many times, but hits back even harder. Even the team's main rival Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) managed to impress me by doing the one thing right that every smug villain should do. She has created a character that you love to hate.
If you have no clue what roller derby is or how it works then fear not. There actually exists a half-assed attempt to explain how the point system works. Although I'm still not too clear on where the rules of physical contact lie. The scenes of the the sport in play are some of the most memorable moments of the film. They have a high energy and intensity level that keeps the movie rather fun.
I have been to a roller derby match or two in my life and the thing that stayed with me the most is the reputation that it carries. These girls like to get down and dirty. Their uniform manages to mingle school girl uniforms, fishnets, knee pads and just about everyone has multiple tattoos and/or piercings. It doesn't really seem to matter who wins or looses, and trying to figure out the logic of the game really is pointless. It simply exists as a way for bad girls to dress provocatively, roller skate around a track, and beat the hell out of each other.
On the surface Whip It wants you to believe that it's about tough chicks ready to scrap. In all honesty it is actually a sweet, simple, and really a harmless little charmer. You will easily figure out where this movie is going long before it gets there. It is still worth seeing for its wonderful performances, its fast moving matches, and for its patches of humor and heart. It may not re-invent the wheel, but it makes good use of four of them on the bottom of a shoe. B
Note: In this age of film piracy I had assumed that the Sneak Preview (a one time screening of a film a week or two before its theatrical release) was all but extinct. Part of the thrill of going to these is the notion that you will see something before it is unleashed upon the masses. The Ring, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and even one of John's favorites Almost Famous were all sneak previews I attended in the past. I am glad to see that studios seem willing to bring this back. I hope that Whip It is the first of many more in the immediate future. The sneak preview is this Saturday night September 26th. The movie opens wide on October 2nd.
0 comments:
Post a Comment