Review: Whip It.

Oversized titles cram the screen triumphantly announcing the arrival of Drew Barrymore as director. And if we can believe her IMDB biography that she is charming, free-spirited, and above talented then certainly her debut feature will be some amalgamation of the three.

Ellen Page has become the go to girl for awkwardly shy yet confident. Unfortunately, her role in Jason Reitman’s Juno (2007) overshadowed her much better performance in David Slade’s Hard Candy (2005). None-the-less, she reprises the witty in over-her-head teenage highschooler but instead of pregnancy she faces the challenge of harnessing the free-spirited and daring person her mom doesn't want her to be. Anyway, after getting involved with a group of roller derby Hurl Scouts she distances herself from the beauty pageant circuit her mother so proudly involves her in. If Page were placed on a scale of Beauty to Awkward she would certainly be more towards the latter. Of course, this is the point when she arrives at the first pageant with blue hair before saving herself with an Amelia Earheart answer. Naturally, her discovered talent of rollerskating doesn't fit in with her mom’s scheme and, big surprise, the important pageant and derby final are on the same night. Thus, the big dilemma that sets up the third act amidst a host of other problems that read like a cliché high school to-do list.

The Hurl Scouts are coached by no other than the third Wilson brother coming straight out of a Wes Anderson film who, along with ringmaster Jimmy Fallon, remains one of the few tolerable characters. It is the scenes involving either one of the two of these characters, taking place mainly at the derby jams, that are the most interesting and entertaining. The rest of the film feels like a been-there-done-that expose on teens trying to act older than their age by displaying juvenile giddiness towards newfound experiences with the unexpected realization that bad choices have, shock, repercussions. The punishing authority themselves, who inevitably show up to squash the event, must have been scripted by a sixteen year old.

One of the only films in a long time to have held the audience during at least part of the final credits owing to the inclusion of various on-set shenanigans, many of them coming from the director herself. The fun of making this film is evident in these last moments and the audience is partly involved. Unfortunately, we are not involved for much of the film when predictable teenage interactions find the main characters playing dumb but finally tie everything up like a new pair of roller-skates. I am not sure exactly what I expected but ended up with Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2009) on skates.