Whip It is the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore. In the film, Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavender a 17-year-old girl who lives in a small town in Texas and is forced by her mother (played by Marcia Gay Harden) to enter beauty pageants, have good prospects, find a good husband and have the opportunities which she never had herself. Bliss wants to get out of her small town and out of The Oink Joint, the restaurant that she works in.
Her opportunity arises when she sees some girls on roller skates come into a shopping mall and they leave leaflets advertising the Texas Roller Derby. Bliss, curious goes with her best friend Pash to see what it's all about. She goes and is taken in by the sport, however there's a problem: over 21's only. Bliss lies about her age, much to her friend's horror and lies to her parents saying she's taking an extra SAT class at a school, while participating in the roller derby.
Roller derby is a contact sport, which is played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Someone is assigned to be a "jammer" who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team. Whoever wins the most points, wins the game. It is known that roller derby is played approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, nearly half of them outside the US. (According to Wikipedia). The film's title comes from the 'whip it' move, in which one player grabs their teammate's arm and throws (whips) them across the track, in turn the player flies past the opposing team and scores four points for their team. It can be a great Team players call themselves derby names, which sometimes reflects on their personality and the aim of the game. Bliss's derby name is Babe Ruthless, I looked up what mine would be and it came up with Rhubarb Rhumble. At first I wasn't sure, but I actually like it now. Don't know how good I would be on roller skates though!
Whip It is a very enjoyable film which stars Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig and US talk show host Jimmy Fallon. Whip It shows that if you keep persevering, you will succeed. Other important messages within the film show that winning is not everything, as long as it's something you love doing and girls, do not get taken in by a man if he doesn't treat you right (a.k.a cheats on you). If you're a fan of indie films or just any film about sports, then I would definitely recommend Whip It.
Whip It is available to buy on DVD and also available on Netflix.
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