Girl, Re-Invented

With today’s entertaining and female-empowered girls-at-the-roller-derby Whip It, Drew Barrymore the actress becomes Drew Barrymore the director.

How fitting that the beloved Hollywood vet should re-invent herself with a movie about re-invention.

Whip It, I’m sure, will not appease everyone‘s expectations, but I assure you Barrymore did a good job.

Sure, the movie’s not quite as X-treme as you’d imagine – but it needn’t be. Roller derby’s a competitive sport about going round and round in a rink – so there’s only so much you can do with that. I think that for her directorial debut, Barrymore has acquitted herself of harsher-than-needed criticism rather nicely.

As for the plot, the movie follows the story of a girl from a small town pursuing her big dreams.

Bliss (Juno’s Ellen Page) is a 17-year-old outcast going through the motions. She yearns for plenty more than she has going on, you know, for something more exciting than anything Bodine, Texas, has to offer – who wouldn’t, right? That includes the ephemeral pleasures of beauty pageantry, a world her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is eager to see her conquer.

Our aptly named heroine finds her bliss in Austin, on a fateful shopping trip, in the form of the Hurl Scouts, a sisterhood of roller derby down-on-their-luck competitors.

Among the tough-chick likes of Maggie Mayhem (TV’s SNL’s Kristen Wiig) and Smashley Simpson (Barrymore herself), Bliss finds the opportunity to discover her passion and her strength and her own self.

She tries out for the team, winning a slot thanks to her petite aerodynamics – which in turn brings victory to the Scouts for a change, much to the pleasure of their put-upon coach (Andrew Wilson) – and starts telling lies to her parents to cover up her new hobby’s requirements.

Soon, she earns the nickname of Babe Ruthless, and becomes her own hero.

But, inevitably, after a while her two worlds collide, and Bliss has to decide what’s truly important in her life.

I liked and enjoyed Whip It. As far as I’m concerned, it is the ultimate-chick-flick-of-the-year-by-an-ultimate-chick movie.

My Rating ***

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.