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Ellen Page is my generation’s version of Winona Ryder. That became increasingly evident as I watched Whip It. She’s a brainy brunette with a penchant for playing shy, quiet, underachieving smart(ass) girls. Her character in Whip It is similar, but has none of Juno’s defining pop culture rapid-fire zingers.
I am not female, but by the end of this movie I felt like an empowered and strong female. Not because it bashes anything, but because it refuses to compromise and sink into clichés. Her cute alternative boyfriend turns out to not be perfect. In a lesser movie she’d make a different decision. Her parents give her permission to go to the big game at the last minute and cheer her on from the sidelines, and, once again, in a different movie the more obvious choice would have happened. This does follow the basic trajectory of a coming-of-age story, and a rookie-makes-it-big sports film, but it follows it with more brains, heart and spunk than I expected.
She doesn’t join roller derby to find herself, she joins roller derby because she thinks it looks like fun and that she’s found something which makes her happy. Along the way it happens to empower her, but she wasn’t a shrieking violet to begin with. I have said a lot about Ellen Page and her character and not much about anyone else. I just adore Ellen Page, and I think that she’s a great and promising talent. Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern are first-rate as her parents. Harden’s also capable of milking laughs as the pageant-obsessed mom by saying things in a super sweet southern voice. Drew Barrymore, a great first director performance by the way, Kristen Wiig, Zoe Bell and Juliette Lewis all deliver strong performances. Lewis in particular seems to be having a ball playing the biggest and baddest roller derby girl. I haven’t liked her this much in a film for a very, very long time. Maybe that Academy Award nomination wasn’t a fluke (I’m talking to you Jennifer Tilly).
