Ellen Page whips it good

Whip It is good spirited fun and further proof of Ellen Page's star potential after owning Juno. The directorial debut of Drew Barrymore may be pure formula, but it's also witty, heartwarming and inspirational in all the right ways.
Page plays Bliss Cavendar an "alternative" girl trying to survive monotony in the deadbeat town of Bodine, Texas. She hates high school and the dumb jocks and jockettes who troll it. Her conservative mom forces her into beauty pageants. And she works part-time at a greasy spoon where they serve "the Squealer" burger for free to anyone who can consume it in three minutes.
One day her life changes when she catches wind of a roller derby in Austin. She and BF Pash watch a raucous game and Bliss is immediately in love.
Maggie Mayhem (the always funny Kristen Wiig), lead skater for the Hurl Scouts, tells Bliss to throw on a pair of skates and be her own hero, and a new passion is born. Bliss may have speed as Babe Ruthless, but she must earn the latter part of her name, and her team sucks. Ranked at the bottom of the derby heap, it'll take many a montage before the underdogs can hope to face the top roller girls.
Whip It is a blast of girl power fun in the tradition of Drop Dead Gorgeous meets Dodgeball. The dream-chasing morals and small town satire balance well with the derby showmanship and Barrymore and writer Shauna Cross educate us well with slapstick violent exposition. Too bad the skating scenes themselves weren't more hyper stylized and/or visceral. How the film handles the love interest (a dumb-cute rocker pretty boy), however, is particularly gratifying.
Be warned of some annoying plot contrivances existing only to serve the tired formula plot. Feisty villain derby girl Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis knows how to play pathetic) discovers Bliss is underage and threatens to expose her.
It's all rendered moot so long as she gets her parents permission. The down in the dumps third act, where her derby love affair dampens all her relationships is also mega contrived. Don't get me started on the slow-mo food fight.
But we will forgive the occasional clichÉ, considering the film manages to charm as easily as it does inspire. Too bad most girls would rather munch down on Robert Pattinson vamp junk food than see something that tells them to be their own hero.
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