Whip It

Bliss Cavendar, living in a small Texas town, is fed up with the beauty pageants her mother enters her in. She stumbles on a roller derby bout in Austin and secretly joins a team, lying about her age and telling her mother nothing. It is Drew Barrymore's first film as director. Elliot Page stars, with Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig and Juliette Lewis in the cast. The source is Shauna Cross's 2007 novel Derby Girl, which she adapted herself. Shooting took place in Michigan and Texas in the summer of 2008, and real roller derby players from local leagues were brought into the cast. The music side is crowded: the film carries a fifty-eight song playlist, with an original score by The Section Quartet. It premiered at Toronto on 13 September 2009 and opened on 2 October. Against a 15 million dollar budget it took 16.6 million worldwide, which is to say it did not work commercially. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 86 percent. Critics granted its reliance on sports-movie shapes and wrote that its energy and good-natured humour carry it past the cliches. Who it is for: viewers who like the sports-film template and want to watch a women's team work. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a surprise. The story runs a familiar line from start to finish and the film does not hide it.