Whip It

Whip It

In the mid-2000's, a very specific kind of movie started to gain popularity, starting in 2004 with the now-hated Garden State, then becoming truly legitimate with the Best Screenplay Oscar-winning cultural phenomenon Juno, that are best described as "mid-2000's indie comedies." While I love a lot of these movies, like (500) Days of Summer and 50/50, they definitely all have shared tropes which make them a sub-genre. They usually take place during autumn, pack their soundtracks with a mix of classic and modern indie music, contain strong elements of romance and drama, blend clever dialogue and "awkward" humor for comedy, and are almost always coming-of age stories (even the rom-coms like (500) Days of Summer are about the main character "growing up"). In 2009, these familiar ingredients were used to make Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It.

Taking place in tiny-town Bodeen, Texas, bored, rebellious teen Ellen Page is tired of her overprotective mother sticking her in beauty pageants and decides to enter the bizarre, violent world of roller derby in Austin, Texas. If you're like me and not familiar at all with roller derby, the movie does a very good job of explaining it while still being entertaining, and it's surprisingly fun to watch considering it's just a bunch of people skating in a circle.

The film is based on a book by Shauna Cross who also wrote the screenplay, which makes sense because it feels like it was written by an author. The strongest elements are the characters, the sport, and the location, all of which are incredibly specific and detailed, like a novel. The plot, on the other hand, is very formulaic, almost as if Cross took all of these wonderful specifics she had and just plopped them into the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey without doing anything to dress it up. It really doesn't matter though, because what's memorable and interesting about the movie are those specific elements, not the structure of the plot. The jokes don't always land either, because Cross isn't a comedy writer so her strength isn't jokes. She's an author, so the most effective humor comes from the awkward situations and the behavior of the characters instead of the quippy dialogue, which can sometimes feel a little forced. It's a lot funnier to watch Drew Barrymore beat up her fiance (who's actually super into it) than it is to hear someone make a clever reference to whatever, so if she had leaned a little more into that it could've been a much funnier film.

The cast is fantastic, with lots of underused actors giving really wonderful performances. Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern are grounded and funny as the parents, Alia Shawkat is instantly lovable as the supportive best friend, Andrew Wilson (the older brother of Owen and Luke) is so believably frustrated by these rowdy women that couldn't care less about winning that it consistently made me laugh, Drew Barrymore's character, Smashley Simpson, is so rough-and-tumble and unique that she steals the show in every scene she's in, and of course Ellen Page is always a relatable and likable protagonist. The only casting issues I have are that Landon Pigg is not charming at all (which ends up making sense, but his character would be far more effective with someone more charismatic and interesting playing him), I simply don't think Jimmy Fallon is funny (which the other characters in the movie also feel, so again, somewhat justified, but could've been more interesting with a better actor), and Kristen Wiig is solid but gets out-shined by the rest of the cast.

Barrymore did such a good job directing that it's actually a bit disappointing she didn't go on to direct more films. The acting is great, the pacing is consistent, the visuals are solid, and the stunts in the roller derby scenes are surprisingly effective. There's so much punching and falling that it's impressive Barrymore managed to keep it from feeling repetitive. Direct more things, Drew!

While the plot itself is overtly formulaic, there's so many memorable characters and moments the movie is definitely worth checking out. It's an exploration of a world that hadn't been explored before, and it's done in the funnest way possible.