My Review: “Whip It”
Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) lives in small-town Texas and yearns to break free of her mother’s (Marcia Gay Harden) world of beauty pageants and conformity. Bliss sees her chance when she meets the Hurl Scouts, a roller-derby team; she tries out for the team and wins a slot, lying to her parents about her new hobby. Bliss finds friendship and freedom with her teammates, but a conflict between a championship game and the Bluebonnet beauty pageant threatens to spill her secret.
I saw Whip It over the weekend, and I absolutely LOVED every minute of it.
The movie stars Ellen Page as Bliss, a unhappy teen stuck in the small town of Bodeen, Texas. She has a pageant obsessed mom, played by Marcia Gay Harden and an ex-football star father, played wonderfully by Daniel Stern. (He’s such a great actor, he needs to do more!)
While on a shopping trip with her mother in Austin, Texas, Bliss is introduced to roller derby, and instantly falls in love. What happens next is awfully predictable, but is also completely fun and exciting. Bliss is torn between pleasing her mother by competing in a beauty pageant, and competing with the roller derby team Hurl Scouts. Gee, I wonder what happens!
I think first time director Drew Barrymore did a brilliant job – but my only complaint is that Drew should not have starred in the movie. Her character, a stoner named Smashley Simpson was completely unbelieveble and bordered on annoying. With that said, I totally enjoyed watching Juliette Lewis as the badass, and Jimmy Fallon as the hilarious announcer. PS: Singer-songwriter Landon Pigg made his acting debut as Bliss’ rocker – love interest. I have his album sitting here on my desk – I’ll write that review up soon.
Bottom line – you should definitely check out Whip It! It’s so much fun! I loved it – and will totally be seeing it again!
October 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I really enjoyed the film – not only was it a lot of fun, but it had some heart, too.
The presence of Ellen Page + the soundtrack + the silly premise made the movie seem very promising to me, and I wasn’t disappointed. Juliette Lewis was amazing, and surprisingly, Kristen Wiig was also excellent, straying from her annoying nervous character that she always seems to do.
Still, the highlight of the film for me is the music, especially since Drew Barrymore used “Unattainable” by Little Joy – that was my favorite song of 2008, and it really fit the party scene after Bliss’ first roller derby performance perfectly.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I have to say I was somewhat hesitant about this one, but I did love Ellen Page in both Juno and Hard Candy…so the Wife and I took it in over the weekend. I enjoyed it thoroughly, laughing nuttily at the crazy antics and the so cool roller derby action. Ellen stands up as one of the most promising young actors of this new generation and Kristen Wiig is just fabulous. Juliette Lewis now has a role I’m happy to say stands heads above all of her others. And Drew did a great job for a first-timer behind the camera. (I kind of enjoyed her goofy Smashley Simpson character.)
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