Whip It (2009)

For those of you that don't know (and why the hell would anyone know this!) a roller derby is a sport. Two teams of 5 skaters move around an oval track trying to get a designated skater past the finish line first. Oh and they can hit each other apparently. In Whip It the teams are all girls, dressed in scanty outfits with dodgy wrestler style names. Ellen Page plays Juno except Juno is not pregnant but is a reluctant beauty pageant competitor forced into makeup and posh frocks by her pushy mum. She is desperate to leave her small town life behind and find her identity. On a shopping trip to the big city of Austin, Texas she is captivated by a gang of girls on roller-skates, picks up a flyer for the derby and is soon sneaking off to watch with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat).

This is Drew Barrymore's debut as a director and I think it is fair to say she decided to play it safe by sticking to some very established formulas. Not only do we have the cliché of a teenage coming of age drama, but we have all the regular clichés of a sport drama too! There is approximately 1 cliché every 5 minutes. Totally relentless. Juno works in a diner, is picked on by the jocks, is nagged by a pushy mum that only wants the best for her, meets a boy, falls for the boy, argues with the boy and makes up with the boy. Phew, but I'm just getting warmed up. Tries out for a team, gets in the team (worst in the league obviously!), is picked on by the best player in the league (Juliette Lewis dressed as a school girl called Iron Maven!), several musical montages later Juno is their best player (Babe Ruthless), the team of misfits come good, compete in 'nail biting' finale against the best team in the league and of course Juno has to battle with Juliette Lewis in order to win while maintaining her relationships with her parents and boyfriend.

That is just the tip of the ice-berg. I did wonder if Barrymore realised how clichéd the film was and thought, 'bollocks to it, in for a penny, in for a pound' and tried to break the Guinness world record for most clichés in a film. Her achievement should be applauded; she crams the combined clichés of 2 genres into one film while managing to include the Radiohead song 'No Surprises' on the soundtrack. To be fair I laughed my ass off when that song played. Touch of irony perhaps? I really hope so.

On the plus side this film is easy to look at. The girls are entertaining enough. Drew Barrymore casts herself as a particularly violent member of the team (Smashley Simpson), who gets herself thrown out of every game for pinning some poor wretch down and pummelling them. And despite my previous bitching I do enjoy a good sports montage set to music. Rocky IV this is not, but would you want to see Sylvester Stallone in hot pants and roller-skates? The soundtrack is decent too which adds to the feel that Juno is an 'alternative' girl in an Indie movie. But make no mistake, this is no independent film, just another formulated Hollywood movie tapping into the same audience it has successfully milked before.

5/10