Movie 4: Whip It

Title: Whip It
Year: 2009
Director: Drew Barrymore
Scriptwriter: Shauna Cross

Drew Barrymore’s triumphant directorial debut tells the story of Bliss Cavendar (the beautiful and talented Ellen Page in another wonderful performance), a small-town girl from Bodeen, Texas who finds herself through a sport called roller derby.

The movie is about making choices and pursuing what truly makes one happy. It’s a fun, kick-ass movie and you might just find yourself yearning to get into roller derby after seeing this.

The supporting cast adds in so much color to the movie and I have to give it to Juliette Lewis for playing the evil bitch with such intensity without trying too hard. Everything about her in this movie screams “YES I’M THE BAD-ASS BITCH HERE, PEOPLE!!!” Hahahaha.

Watch out for the cast’s roller derby stage names, they’re so funny and cool.

Favorite scene: The underwater foreplay between Bliss and Oliver.

It really helped that scriptwriter Shauna Cross was herself a roller derby skater because the movie oozed with so much sincerity and genuinity. This is also a laudable debut movie for Drew Barrymore as a director. When I heard she was directing a movie I thought it was some typical chick-flick but I tell you, Whip It is in no way a chick-flick. It’s not a movie about some girl trying to make her dreams come true and finds the right guy along the way. It’s a movie about a girl who “woman-ed up” and worked her ass out to become her own hero.

Rating: 4/5 stars