Despite their differences in age, nationality and lineage, Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page feel cut from similar cloth. Independent of mind and spirit, they embody a new kind of female cinema icon. They also both seem drawn to the funkier side of popular culture. Who but Barrymore, in her role as producer, could have taken the campy television show Charlie's Angels and turned it into a contemporary feminist blockbuster franchise?
A perfect match for these two engaging personalities, Whip It is Barrymore's debut as a director and Page's first big starring role since Juno. The setting is the world of roller derby, that discredited seventies sexploitation sport now transformed into a grassroots phenomenon sweeping a certain sector of America's female population. Often working class and with a fondness for tough-girl noms de sport (“Sandra Day O'Clobber” is a personal favourite), these devil-may-care women have built an increasingly successful sports movement.
Bliss Cavendar (Page) is your typical smalltown Texan teenager. Comically misunderstood by her parents, the aspiring tomboy is made to compete in beauty pageants by her faded debutante mom (Marcia Gay Harden).
While visiting nearby Austin, Bliss spies a couple of wild-looking women on roller skates delivering flyers for a local roller-derby night. With her best friend, the saucy-but-kinda-nerdy Pash (Alia Shawcat), Bliss crashes a world far from the pageant crowd, a rocking underground punk scene infused with beer, hellcats, fishnets, short skirts and bodychecking.
Before long, she's leading an exhilarating but risky double life. First-time director Barrymore is clearly in her groove working with the perfectly cast derby girls (including Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven, Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem, Eve as Rosa Sparks, and Zoe Bell as Bloody Holly), all of whom execute their own stunts. Barrymore herself is a knockout (pun!), playing an accident-prone and totally hilarious Smashle Simpson.
Noah Cowan
Drew Barrymore was born in California to a family of actors and began performing as a child. Her many acting credits include
E.T.:
The Extra-Terrestrial (82),
Far from Home (89),
Everyone Says I Love You (96),
The Wedding Singer (98),
Donnie Darko (01),
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (02) and
He's Just Not That Into You (09). She produced and starred in the films
Never Been Kissed (99),
Charlie's Angels (00) and
Fever Pitch (05), among others.
Whip It (09) is her feature directorial debut.