That's just how director Barrymore rolls
Ellen Page, who learned to skate growing up in Canada, whips it.
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Whip It
Running time: 111 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13 (profanity, action violence, adult situations, drug material)
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"Whip It" is Drew Barrymore's stance on women's empowerment, mother-daughter understanding, roller derby and bruised behinds.
Set in the world of roller derby, a sport, of sorts, rolling along as modernized retro brutality on wheels, Barrymore's feature film directing debut bears more broad punch than artistic skill and delicate touch.
It's almost as if someone told Barrymore, "OK, here's a camera. We want something like Girls Gone Wild, but clean it up a little." Attractive, but rough-talking girls in skimpy outfits and tattoos elbowing each other over the rail as beer-swilling men whoop it up in the audience fits the bill well enough.
Set in the world of roller derby, a sport, of sorts, rolling along as modernized retro brutality on wheels, Barrymore's feature film directing debut bears more broad punch than artistic skill and delicate touch.
It's almost as if someone told Barrymore, "OK, here's a camera. We want something like Girls Gone Wild, but clean it up a little." Attractive, but rough-talking girls in skimpy outfits and tattoos elbowing each other over the rail as beer-swilling men whoop it up in the audience fits the bill well enough.
What's lacking here, though, is that undefinable magical element that percolates in truly memorable films.
Throw in Oscar nominee Ellen Page of "Juno" fame as a small-town high school student who can't stand her mom's (Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden) insistence that she follow in her beauty queen pageant high-heel steps and you've got "Whip It," an odd cinematic duck at best.
Yet there's something to be said for Barrymore's sheer staying power. The perpetually energetic (at least in public) and genuinely talented torch bearer of the multi-generational Barrymore acting clan has survived in a profession that has gobbled up and spit out many of her peers. More than a few got a taste of the limelight young, then -- like a moth drawn to the flame -- self-destructed in the harsh spotlight that revealed their talent in the first place.
As much as anything else, "Whip It" is a deserved chance for the adult Barrymore, who sprang into show business in a closet surrounded by stuffed toys and screaming at Steven Spielberg's alien "E.T.," to raise her fist in the air and proclaim, "I've come a long way, baby!"
Judged purely on the level of entertainment, though, "Whip It" is a noble, if rather sophomoric attempt to bond a very different mother and daughter in front of a faux Austin, Texas backdrop.
Lensed in the Detroit area and not the Lone Star State, "Whip It" is based on screenwriter Shauna Cross's semi-autobiographical novel of 2007. It combines Barrymore's three fave genres; action, comedy and family drama.
No one will say that Barrymore's actors don't give it their acting, jamming, hip-checking all. My favorites are the leaders of the eight-wheeled packs. "Saturday Night Live's" Kristen Wiig ("Extract") really gets under the empathetic skin of Maggie Mayhem, captain of the Hurl Scouts. (Barrymore mounts skates for them when she's not behind the camera.)
The finest performance, however, comes from Juliette Lewis, an Academy Award nominee for the 1991 "Cape Fear" remake. She's Iron Maven, the tough-as-nails captain of the rival Holy Rollers.
Page turns in some effective screen moments with Harden (who's always magnificent). Page's smart, curious teen goes from street skating in pink Barbie wheels to jumping over downed jammers on the derby track. It's hardly an acting stretch after "Juno," but Page makes the most of yet another role as a witty, perplexed teen trying to find herself and her place in the world.
As much as I love Page's roller derby name, Babe Ruthless, however, Barrymore is the one who truly deserves that label.
Throw in Oscar nominee Ellen Page of "Juno" fame as a small-town high school student who can't stand her mom's (Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden) insistence that she follow in her beauty queen pageant high-heel steps and you've got "Whip It," an odd cinematic duck at best.
Yet there's something to be said for Barrymore's sheer staying power. The perpetually energetic (at least in public) and genuinely talented torch bearer of the multi-generational Barrymore acting clan has survived in a profession that has gobbled up and spit out many of her peers. More than a few got a taste of the limelight young, then -- like a moth drawn to the flame -- self-destructed in the harsh spotlight that revealed their talent in the first place.
As much as anything else, "Whip It" is a deserved chance for the adult Barrymore, who sprang into show business in a closet surrounded by stuffed toys and screaming at Steven Spielberg's alien "E.T.," to raise her fist in the air and proclaim, "I've come a long way, baby!"
Judged purely on the level of entertainment, though, "Whip It" is a noble, if rather sophomoric attempt to bond a very different mother and daughter in front of a faux Austin, Texas backdrop.
Lensed in the Detroit area and not the Lone Star State, "Whip It" is based on screenwriter Shauna Cross's semi-autobiographical novel of 2007. It combines Barrymore's three fave genres; action, comedy and family drama.
No one will say that Barrymore's actors don't give it their acting, jamming, hip-checking all. My favorites are the leaders of the eight-wheeled packs. "Saturday Night Live's" Kristen Wiig ("Extract") really gets under the empathetic skin of Maggie Mayhem, captain of the Hurl Scouts. (Barrymore mounts skates for them when she's not behind the camera.)
The finest performance, however, comes from Juliette Lewis, an Academy Award nominee for the 1991 "Cape Fear" remake. She's Iron Maven, the tough-as-nails captain of the rival Holy Rollers.
Page turns in some effective screen moments with Harden (who's always magnificent). Page's smart, curious teen goes from street skating in pink Barbie wheels to jumping over downed jammers on the derby track. It's hardly an acting stretch after "Juno," but Page makes the most of yet another role as a witty, perplexed teen trying to find herself and her place in the world.
As much as I love Page's roller derby name, Babe Ruthless, however, Barrymore is the one who truly deserves that label.
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