Whip It

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before Drew Barrymore decided to direct a movie. She has been performing in front of the camera since she was a child, and has been a very successful producer for a full decade. Many actors have gracefully transitioned from performer to director (Sean Penn, Mel Gibson, Ben Stiller, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, and Ben Affleck among others) and have even won an Academy Award for best Director for their first endeavor (Robert Redford, Kevin Costner).

Whip It is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. The film is based on the novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, and follows a Texas teenager, Bliss, who is unhappily competing in local beauty pageants to satisfy her mother, though it's clearly a bad fit to anyone paying attention. After Bliss (played by Ellen Page), serendipitously attends a roller derby, she senses her true calling. She sneaks out to join a team of tattooed, trash talking, heavily made up roller girls, slowly becoming their star squad member while her parents think she's cramming for the SAT's. It's a strange twist on the Cinderella story in that the main character begins her journey as a princess and yearns for the freedom of grubby clothes and rough and tumble 'sisters'.

Some actors can play any number of characters, changing personae like a chameleon changes color. Others manage to exude a certain likeable 'everyman' quality and are assumed to be playing themselves in each movie. Whether she is playing a good or bad girl, Drew Barrymore is likeable. She seems comfortable in her own skin despite having lived most of her life under the magnifying lens of a fickle and critical public.

Barrymore's filmography suggests a lot of good will: she works with many actors repeatedly, including former boyfriends and their siblings, as well as Oscar caliber actors like Jessica Lange and Marsha Gay Harden. It's easy to slip into the fun of rollerskating, and the ragtag girls that moonlight as skaters (with wacky names like Iron Maven or Bloody Holly).Whip It has moments of freshness and breeziness, owing to the quirky pluck of Ellen Page. The film loses its footing in the editing; it is overly long, with scenes that bloat a coming of age story (there's an oddly placed food fight that is neither fun nor funny). Still, Barrymore as director has the keen sense to choose an interesting girl-power story, and cast equally interesting actors. In the film, Drew Barrymore and Juliet Lewis play roller derby queens who tease and taunt Bliss. In reality, both actors began their careers as young girls so it is especially poignant to see them as 'veterans' forcing the rite of passage on the new kid.