Whip It

Editorial

Roller derby should be the star of Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut but the kitsch/cool sub-culture sport is relegated to second spot behind the needlessly humdrum plot surrounding it.

What happens when 17-year-old Texan sprite Bliss (a dialled-down Ellen Page) finds her life’s calling is to skate quickly around a track, as competing women jostle, has little of the colour, craziness and zip of the extreme sport she has joined.

Come on. Why would we want to see Bliss go through the same old same old – fights with her domineering but well-intended mum (Marcia Gay Harden); rapidly rises through the ranks in an underdog team; gets an indentikit musician boyfriend; lets selfish ambition taint everything; we all live happily ever after – when rough-and-tumble chicks on roller skates are such unusual screen fodder?

Ensuring the indie soundtrack is suitably indie-tastic, the aesthetics are suitably lo-fi hep, and a crackling cast is suitably strapped on, Barrymore (who also co-stars) lets the side down by allowing her film’s strongest asset to spin out.

Interest wanes as Bliss’s by-the-numbers journey becomes more important than allowing us to hang with her Hurl Scout team-mates and their hot-wheels lifestyle.

When we do get back to the track, the garbled staging of each roller jam makes it difficult to understand who is doing what and how derbying works.

Constantly being in amongst the action, combined with quick edits, prevents viewers from getting the big picture and also thwarts the vibrant crowd atmosphere from translating to screen.

On the plus side, the assembled skaters, fans and backdrops authentically drip the Faster Pussycat milieu of a vintage spectacle. Juliette Lewis, Kristen Wiig and Andrew “brother of Owen and Luke” Wilson do the best with the little time they’re afforded; same with Gay Harden and Daniel “City Slickers” Stern as Bliss’ parental units. As we demand, Page is Page, yet it’s even hard for Juno to work miracles with cookie-cutter character arcs.

Cinema is still gagging for an awesome movie about the sensational spectator sport which has become an underground favourite in Australia recently. Barrymore’s tatts might have been in the right place for a well-intended salute, but too much Xanadu-ing gets in the way for Whip It to winningly crack.

Zach Gibson