In 1972, bombshell Raquel Welch was the epitomizing image of roller derby. Today, fittingly, it’s plucky Ellen Page.
When Welch starred in “Kansas City Bomber,” the gritty drama boasted the tagline, “The Hottest Thing on Wheels.” Almost four decades later, owing to a sincere central performance from Page, an intrinsically warm sensibility and an unapologetic sense of fun, “Whip It” — Drew Barrymore’s enjoyable directorial debut which opens October 2 – conveys the spirit of a simpler, less salacious, more benevolent retro tagline: “Hot Wheels.”
Page is Bliss Cavendar, a reticent 17-year-old high school senior yearning, along with Pash, her best friend and fellow waitress at the Oink Joint (Home of the Squealer), for the chance to flee the small town of Bodean, Texas, a short but culturally far-flung drive from Austin. Bolstering her resolve to escape, is her genteel mother’s (Marcia Gay Harden) insistence on entering the reluctant teen into flowery pageants. Spurred by a flier, Bliss sneaks off to Austin one evening with Pash (a winsome Alia Shawkat, “Maeby on “Arrested Development”) and is mesmerized and empowered by the roller derby bouts. She doggedly trains on an old pair of Barbie skates. At the tryouts, where she is scrappy and fast, she earns selection onto the lone available spot on the perennial losing team, “The Hurl Scouts.” Bliss fibs to her parents about her weekday whereabouts, and lies about her age to the league. Both she and Pash are good kids and students, but even dutiful teens are impressionable; the film makes their foibles believable and the resolutions plausible.
The roller derby world is similarly filled with realistic characters. Even at their most boisterous, they reflect as people not pantomimes. Saturday Night Live’s ubiquitous Kristen Wiig delivers an unexpectedly unaffected performance as Maggie Mayhem, a mentoring teammate and single mom. Drew Barrymore and Eve are pleasant additions to the team as Smashley Simpson and Rosa Sparks, respectively. And the third acting Wilson brother, the hirsute Andrew (beard like “Beach Boy” Dennis, voice like sibling Luke) plays the team’s tactically ignored coach, the good-natured and jean-shorted Razor. A sports movie wouldn’t be complete without a rival; Iron Maven, the leader of the Holy Rollers, is played with sneering delight by the raspy, sinewy Juliette Lewis, who has the Pavlovian sexiness of a Jäger dispenser.
For the actor’s first foray into directing, Barrymore has surrounded herself with a stellar technical crew. The frenzied bouts are filmed with consideration by Robert D. Yeoman, Wes Anderson’s director of photography of choice. And Dylan Tichenor, who has edited Paul Thomas Anderson’s most esteemed films (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “There Will Be Blood”), keeps the action taut. The film’s more contemplative moments are illustrated with grace.
While early on “Whip It” begins a tad too fixated on clichés of rustic life, once the film dispenses with the caricatures and finds its rhythm, it becomes both more poignant and playful and proceeds to earn its actual tagline – “Be Your Own Hero.” As the characters evolve in the refreshingly middle-class household, Page and mail-carrier Harden are especially strong in a touching scene, filmed primarily with the mother and daughter sitting on the floor of the Cavendar’s modest kitchen, where understanding and appreciation are spooned out like ingredients for an unwritten family recipe. Daniel Stern is a dependably assured presence as Bliss’ likable dad, Earl. The film also dispenses, thankfully, with the annoying habit of superfluous cameos which have increasingly blighted too many films. (Jimmy Fallon appears as the on-track arena announcer; both his repartee and persona fit the cheesiness of the rousing ringmaster.) So, as the film gets stronger as it goes along, Barrymore, ultimately, makes “Whip It” good.
