DVD Reviews

Whip It

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Drew Barrymore
• Details: US/111mins 12A

Credit where credit is due, Drew Barrymore has transferred the best things about her acting work (charm, comic timing and that elusive likeability factor) to her first gig as a director. The former child actress has once again proved the naysayers wrong with an initial bash at what surely will become a second career wielding a megaphone.
Casting one of the finest actresses of her generation in a lead role she would've played seven or eight years ago, Barrymore doesn't skimp with the calibre on the supporting players either. Juliette Lewis, Kristen Wigg and Marcia Gay Harden are all given plenty of screentime to impress, and dutifully oblige their director. Still, this is Ellen Page's movie, and the Juno star proves, unequivocally, that she can simultaneously amuse and engage - often with just the change of a facial expression.
Page is introverted teen Bliss Cavendar, a bright young woman who is constantly entered into beauty pageants by her autocratic mother, despite her protests. Stumbling across an all female roller derby in Texas, she soon finds herself renamed Babe Ruthless, as she becomes a stalwart member of the team in dead last. Within days she's meeting boys, cracking skulls and having the time of her life.
Essentially a sports movie, but one that approaches the sport in question from an unsullied place, Whip It is just a lot of fun. Sure, the overbearing parent pushing their child in the wrong direction because of their own shortcomings thing has been done countless times before; but here, with Barrymore's deft freshman touch it just feels more real, and crucially, more entertaining.
Some might write it off as a chick flick, but those that do will be missing out on a seriously good time. You will want to hang out with these characters after the film has ended - which is a place some TV shows spends years trying to get to. Barrymore is now firmly a directorial talent to watch, and Whip It is a damn fine first film.

Review by Mike Sheridan