“Let’s celebrate mediocrity,” says Razor (Andrew Wilson), the coach of the roller derby team affectionately called “The Hurl Scouts” in the movie Whip It after they lost one of many competitions.
This is the perfect moment to describe the entire film.
In Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, she decides to tackle a story based on the novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross (who also wrote the screenplay). It’s your basic cinematic underdog story: Bliss (Ellen Page) is an angsty girl with low self-esteem and lost ambition. Her mother (played by Marcia Gay Harden) is hell-bent on her becoming a prissy Texas pageant girl. Bliss obviously hates it and finds solace in wearing skates and a Girl Scout uniform while zipping through aggressive gals who want to elbow her in the face.
The film may have been mediocre, but it didn’t apologize for it. It was as though they knew the film wasn’t going to be great, but they had fun anyway. It was sweet, cute but it didn’t hold the attention that one would expect from a roller derby-centric film. With crazy roller skating outfits that would be suitable for a Heatherette or Marc Jacobs runway show, I was expecting a lot more grit and intimate aggression. Instead, I settled for brief flashes of “jammer” action and a lukewarm lovestory between Bliss and indie band boy, Oliver (Landon Pigg) – who was doing his best impression of a Coldplay member.
Marcia Gay Harden, Alia Shawkat and Kristen Wiig made the movie a bit more tolerable. They made Page’s character interesting and worthwhile. With askating moniker of ‘Babe Ruthless’ you expect a lot, but there was no ‘Babe’ nor ‘Ruthless’ reflected in Bliss.
I could’ve done without the tormenting snippiness of Juliette Lewis. She could’ve afforded to tone down on the contrived vengeful bully talk. It was just annoying. She acted and looked like Pizzazz, the arch nemesis on Jem and the Holograms.
Either way, the movie will probably ignite a roller derby resurgence as well as “bad girl on skates” style. And who doesn’t think that’s sexy?
Overall critique: Sweet, but it needed more roller ruckus and thoughtful charm. C+
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Bored
- Sad
- Angry
