Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.
Drew Barrymore has been acting since she was in diapers. She's had kind of a rough life growing up but in the end she has turned out pretty well for herself. Now that she has her career (and personal) life back on track she makes her directorial debut with the movie Whip It.
Whip it is essentially Juno on roller skates. You have Ellen Page playing Bliss, a Texas beauty pageant queen who really does not like beauty pageants and only does them because Mom (Marcia Gay Harden...perfect in this role) forces her to. She works as a waitress in the local town diner, the only landmark in town, with her best friend and really just wants to break away and be her own women.
One day she is shopping around for a new dress for the next pageant when she sees a flyer for a roller derby exhibition match between the best team and the worst team. She decides to fake going to a football game and goes and watches the game. Next thing you know one of the players Maggie Mayhem (Kristin Wiig in a serious but funny role) asks her to join the team. The team consists of Smashley Simpson (Barrymore) Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell in a great almost silent role) Rosa Sparks (Eve in a great role) and the deaf but brutal Manson sisters (actual derby players). They are coached by Razor, played by the third Wilson brother Andrew Wilson (brother to Owen and Luke). Razor is definetly the comic backbone in the movie providing great lines and great relief throughout. Other performances from Juliette Lewis and Jimmy Fallon also stand out as being really well done. Overall a good ensemble.
Before we go on I might as well explain the rules:
The team skates around in a circle. Two players, usually the fastest, stay back and go on a second whistle. They race around the track once and then depending on how many players of the opposing team they pass, get points on the second time around when they pass.
Anyway...the sports movie is alive in this one. Its a generic sports movie story with the ultimate "choose which path you want to go" and "big game against rival" cliches...but this movie does it in a real creative, quirky and unique way. The writing is spot on and is in fact written by the REAL Maggie Mayhem. She brings a great quick wit and dry sarcastic humor to the story but at the same time the movie is really sweet and almost feels like an indie comedy at times.
Its a real girl power movie but for guys its enjoyable for its writing, story, characters, moral and an overall sense of feeling good when you walk out of the movie. My mom actually said its her favorite movie she has ever seen, right next to the Untouchables.
But for me
MY VERDICT: OWN IT
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