Girl-wonder Drew Barrymore heads behind the cameras for a stunning debut...

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It! is impossible not to like. And no wonder, with a cast boasting not only Barrymore herself, but Juno’s Ellen Page, Juliet Lewis, Eve, and Zoe Bell. And they’re all in fishnets.

The anachronistic nature of records and roller-skates, teamed with the conservative small-town setting, at first makes it difficult to date this film. Seventeen-year-old Bliss Cavendar (Page) hails from Bodeen, a part of Texas oddly free of regional accents, where the women and men are concerned with beauty pageants and football respectively.

The slightly formulaic story follows Bliss’ attempts to escape her mother’s"psychotic '50s ideal of womanhood" (hey--her words, not mine) by joining nearby Austin’s punkgrrl roller derby team, the ‘Hurl Scouts’. BFF Pash (Alia “Maeby” Shawkat of Arrested Development) is only too happy to come along for the ride.

Cue broken spectacles, arrests, and cute indie boy. Inevitably, conflict arises when the Cavendars discover what Bliss is up to. After learning a life lesson from fellow Scout Maggie Mayhem (played by Kristen Wiig) Bliss extends the olive branch and agrees to participate in the Miss Blue Bonnet Pageant. But—shock of all shocks—the pageant turns out to be on the same night as the Hurl Scout’s championship game. Whatever will Bliss do?

Despite its slightly predicable storyline, there is plenty to love here. Page has the quirky teen outcast thing down. She certainly doesn’t seem to mind being typecast, and with word that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry and Ghost World writer Daniel Clowes want her for their upcoming sci-fi adaptation, it’s just as well. My one qualm about Whip It! was having her alone on the roof before the cut to credits. For me this was an unfortunate allusion to the ending of Hard Candy, which seemed to slightly detract from all the feel-goodness of the rest of the film.

"Despite its slightly predicable storyline, there is plenty to love here"

Barrymore captures perfectly not only the certainties and claustrophobia of being a teenage girl in a small-town, but the relationships between each character. The scenes between Bliss and her mother are the strongest of all. And what is refreshing about Whip It! is that Bliss’ relationship with guitar-boy does not take centre stage. The inclusion of a very hetero romance could be read as an effort to balance out the latent homosocial themes in this film, but it seems to work within the plot nonetheless; setting the touching underwater love scene to Jens Lekman’s ‘Your Arms Around Me’ contributes just the right element of impending disaster at the pivotal moment of the film.

"Barrymore captures perfectly not only the certainties and claustrophobia of being a teenage girl in a small-town, but the relationships between each character"

It is also satisfying to see so many strong female characters in one place. At least one Hurl Scout is a mother, and perhaps the feistiest competitor of all, Iron Maven (played by Lewis), is thirty-six. The derby girls are tough, tattooed, and sexy as hell. But despite a few remarks from commentator Johnny Rocket (played by Jimmy Fallon), Whip It! doesn’t go out of its way to sexualise them. These sistahs are doing it for themselves...

Whip It! is an unashamedly feel-good flick, filled with infectious energy and wit. Get your skates on and go see it. Go see it twice.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE HELP SUPPORT OUR SITE, AT NO COST WITH ONE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK 'LIKE' BUTTON BELOW: