Grrrl Power on Roller Skates

Most chick flicks are disappointing. Sure, you get an occasional pleasant surprise like Little Black Book, or a film with a couple nice moments like Mona Lisa Smile, but overall, ‘chick flick’ is code for saccharine, contrived, and meaninglessly cathartic. At best, they’re a waste of a couple hours. At worst, they set the stage for a lifetime of indoctrinated bad romantic decisions. Thankfully, Whip It manages to escape its genre.

The story isn’t what sold the pitch, though it manages to put a new twist on two tired genres: sports and coming-of-age. Indie “It Girl” Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a 17-year-old free spirit stuck in the one-horse Texas town of Bodeen. But she’s just a borrowed car ride away from the mecca for misfits: Austin. Written with loving authenticity by native Austinite Shauna Cross (and based on her novel), the film chronicles Bliss’s attempt to break though her lethargic pageant-world, diner-serving existence through the liberating force of (what else?) roller derby.

The film’s success is partially due to its writing, but the soul of the story comes out in the performances of the incredible cast. There’s a reason great filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman surrounded themselves with a group of artists and made every film with them. Cinema is a collaborative art that, like theatre, thrives when the cast and crew form relationships and grow together as they pursue excellence. It works with the greats like Bergman, with the blockbuster directors like Peter Jackson, with quirky arthouse directors like Wes Anderson, and, surprisingly, with Drew Barrymore.

Whip It could easily have fallen apart into fragmented, uneven performances, especially from the roller derby characters. Jimmy Fallon has some winceable moments, as usual, but on the whole, it was clear that Barrymore cultivated an atmosphere of collaboration on set. In her directorial debut, Barrymore managed a creative environment that eludes most seasoned directors, and that bodes well for her future behind the camera.

Whip It should have done much better at the box office, based purely on its merits as a film. The release was poorly timed and Juno-fatigue combined with oversaturation of the market with a couple tv spots that failed to highlight the strength of the cast as a whole all contributed to a bad opening weekend. One week later, the fall movie season overtook it, and the little film that could went down like one of Smashley Simpson’s opponents. But like so many good films that suffer a similar fate, Whip It deserved better.

It’s a Juno type film, but it’s not Juno; instead, it’s what Juno could have been if someone had convinced Diablo Cody to set her screenplay in the real world. Page’s Bliss is witty, but doesn’t sound like a walking urban dictionary. The characters are quirky, but not caricatures of themselves. And while it is predictable in the way only an oddball coming-of-age sports story can be, the film attempts (and achieves) a realism too often missing from its schmaltzier cousins. Bliss understandably rebels against her Miss Bluebonnet pageant upbringing, but the writer doesn’t let that legitimate longing to escape justify Bliss mocking her family. In fact, Bliss’s idol, Maggie Mayhem, is the one who tells her to “put on some skates and be your own hero” and she’s also the one who tells her to work things out with her mom.

At every turn, Whip It refuses to allow the characters to take the easy, cathartic way out, and denies the audience the righteous indignation we crave to excuse the rebellions of our favorite characters. We love it when Juno tells her step-mom “Wow! Dream big!” about her plan to buy Weimaraners, but it should make us cringe. When Bliss attempts the same thing, we do cringe, because Drew Berrymore shows us what that cheap laugh does to a real relationship. Whip It offers a realistic snapshot and admirable model for people in Bliss’s situation. In an age when teens (and their moms) swoon over the dangerously dramatic model Bella sets out for them in the ghastly Twilight series, Bliss is a welcome breath of fresh air.