Directed by Drew Barrymore. Starring Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Eve, Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore 12A cert, gen release, 111 min
The predictable Whip It just gets by, thanks to its charming cast, writes DONALD CLARKE
HOW FAR can you get on goodwill alone? That is, it seems, the question being asked by Drew Barrymore’s harmless, featherweight directorial debut.
Whip It stars Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar, a Texan teenager who, unbeknown to her tight-ass mom, becomes lured into the bloody, sweary world of roller derby. The soundtrack throbs to the beat of easy-going indie rock ( Your Arms Around Meby Jens Lekman, anyone?) and the supporting cast includes such reliable comic players as Jimmy Fallon and Kristen Wiig. You'd have to be a roaring cad to dislike the thing.
Sure, Whip Itis deadeningly predictable. When Bliss first encounters the Hurl Scouts (as the team are named), the skaters are enduring an epic losing streak. Resigned to defeat, they regularly ignore the advice of their admirably enthusiastic coach (Andrew Wilson, brother of Luke and Owen) and, after being smashed savagely against every available surface, enthusiastically celebrate finishing second in a two-horse race.
It hardly needs to be said that Bliss turns out to be prodigiously talented, and the Scouts begin surging up the league table. You will have guessed that mom, played by an only moderately demented Marcia Gay Harden, eventually softens up and that her daughter gains a kind of unstuffy maturity.
Okay, the picture is too in love with a dated, post-grunge school of cool – that’s enough about bleeding Austin, trendsetters – and its inability to twist the knife in its supposedly unsympathetic characters consistently reveals its pathological spinelessness.
For all that, the film does get by on the charm of its actors and its amiable baggy-shirted ambiance. Juliette Lewis, who looks as if she’s spent the last decade being vigorously stonewashed, adds menace as the team’s creepiest member, and the director herself is on hand to dare punters into hating the piece.
Only the meanest viewer will take up that challenge, but it’s hard to imagine anybody else remembering much about Drew’s directorial debut after the final credits have rolled.
