'Whip' Never Cracks: Formula Falls Flat in Drew Barrymore's Directorial Debut

'Whip It'

Review: 2.5/5

Despite the mise-en-scene built entirely of loud primary colors, the great original concept, and the promise of Ellen Page playing a derivative of her delightfully anarchic 'Juno,' 'Whip It' staggers across the screen with an unusual didactic sensibility, thoroughly founded in kitsch. Throughout the film the spectator is explicitly reminded that women are uncompromising in their desires, blinded to the point of intentional stubbornness. What could have been a delicate character study is morphed into a hybrid of childlike decorum and fatuous feminine lament (the dad, played by Daniel Stern, drinks beer and watches football). The result limits the actors to one-dimensional anachronisms required by the film's conventional approach to a non-conventional subject.

Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a former beauty-pageant participant living in the archetypal small-town anywhere USA where ennui rules and nothing 'cool' ever happens to anyone. Especially poor Bliss who bides her time living through her mother's vicarious dreams for her. Needless to say, when Bliss discovers a roller-derby in a nearby town (Austin, TX), she lies about her age and joins the team. She becomes the star, the team starts winning games, she falls in love, she falls out of love, she upsets her mother with her defiant adherence to roller-derby, etc. You can see where this one's going.

What's most unfortunate, though, is that Page, who is an actress of considerable talent, exhibited in 'Juno,' 'The Tracy Fragments,' and 'Hard Candy,' is limited to a character that has two defining characteristics: indifference and a kind of atypical benevolence that only comes to fruition in the film's last act. This permits Page the opportunity to pout her way through the shamelessly obvious impediments that anyone taking on this new endeavor would very likely face. I wanted to empathize with Bliss, but given her direction to maintain a quiet, bellicose temperament, I became eventually annoyed with her superficial demeanor, even though it seems that Page is attempting, scene by scene, to layer her muted performance.

The film is shot with the aforementioned loud primary colors, which proves to be the filmic equivalent of a moving 'Hello Kitty' bus. It assaults the spectator, reminding us that we'd better be paying attention... or else. The direction by Barrymore is respectable given that this is her first outing in the position. She does come across with a very recognizable visual style, I'll admit, but the film, which attempts to be a punk-rock ode to bored teenage girls in rural towns, makes a cacophonous wail, urging for recognition.