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 Be your own hero. This is the message put forth by Whip It, a message clearly taken to heart by its first-time director. Drew Barrymore is as fearless behind the camera as she is in front of it, tackling several challenging genres as well as Whip It’s crowded cast with the assurance that comes from knowing the story she wants to tell. Where earlier her trademark girl-power mantra and in-your-face comedy has sometimes come off a little too aggressive, a little too overt, here it feels perfectly appropriate. Whip It is a story that works on multiple levels, reaching both comedic and dramatic heights and proving to be entertaining despite being a bit clichéd.
As adapted by Shauna Cross from her 2007 novel Derby Girl, Whip It follows a small-town misfit teen named Bliss Cavendar (Juno’s Ellen Page) as she carves a path for herself in the brutal but freeing roller derby subculture of nearby Austin, Texas. A reluctant pageant girl, Bliss is regularly outperformed by her younger sister and has no real outlet for her growing angst--that is, until she finds a flyer advertising an upcoming roller derby event. Captivated by the players’ confidence and the sport’s rough-and-tumble violence, Bliss immediately signs up for tryouts despite being underage. Her speed and agility get her a spot on the Hurl Scouts and it’s not long before she’s accepted into their ranks and flirting with the cute singer of a local band (Landon Pigg). Secrets, however, can only be kept for so long.
After the cops raid one of the Hurl Scouts’ events, Bliss’s parents (Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern) uncover her Babe Ruthless persona and force her to quit. Heated words fly back and forth, doors slam and Bliss’s world is torn apart. Her boyfriend’s off on tour, possibly cheating on her, and her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) refuses to speak to her. Cut off from roller derby and everyone she cares about, Bliss attempts a compromise that may or may not mean the end of her days as Babe Ruthless. By the end of the film, Bliss has not only grown into her own person but has faced down her demons both on and off the track.
 Though Cross deserves praise for crafting a story with such appeal and heart, it is to Barrymore’s credit that nothing in the film feels too overwrought or overwhelming. Even though the rules of roller derby get lost in the commotion of the first few scenes on the track, the matches are exciting and easy enough to follow. Perhaps as a result of her role in the film (Barrymore plays Hurl Scout Smashley Simpson), Barrymore is able to capture the action on the track in an engagingly visceral way. When Juliette Lewis’s Iron Maven slams into the railing after being knocked out of rotation and Bliss hits the ground on her side in the championship game, it is easy to imagine the bruises forming under their uniforms. Rather than repel audiences, these images bring them into the game, forcing them to take an unmitigated interest in the outcome of each match while also convincing them that a real game is in progress. Barrymore does indulge in some silliness by including a food fight and characters that feel more like caricatures at times, but she balances these extremes with an explosive confrontation scene between Bliss and her parents. Bliss is riddled with angst but not so much that she becomes intolerably morose, and her dalliance with Pigg’s Oliver feels organic rather than forced. Slight oversights leave the fate of Bliss’s relationship with Oliver somewhat up in the air and the Hurl Scouts’ quick ascendancy out of last place feeling a little too rushed, but otherwise Barrymore keeps her film firmly level.
If it weren’t for the solid performances of the cast, however, no amount of technical mastery would’ve kept Whip It from miring itself in its clichés. Ellen Page turns out another fine performance as an offbeat adolescent, somehow coming off both more approachable and more ferocious than her Juno MacGuff. Juno would never push a girl off a staircase railing at school, nor would she blow up in her parents’ faces. Marcia Gay Harden is also impressive as Bliss’s demanding, stress-smoking pageant mom, imbuing her with the depth necessary to make believable her past as something more than just a pageant-mom-mail-carrier. Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem and Andrew Wilson as the Hurl Scouts’ coach Razor are both pitch-perfect, delivering some of the funniest lines in the film, while Juliette Lewis more than any of the other derby girls embodies the character that she plays. Along with the rest of the cast, they give texture to the story and add something new to the familiar roles they’ve been given.
Whip It makes for an overall satisfying film but its bonus features leave several things to be desired. Aside from forced trailers and a perplexing montage of clips from various romance films set to the Plain White T’s “1,2,3,4,” the DVD (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, MSRP: $29.98) offers only nine deleted/extended scenes, including an alternate opening. The two-disc Blu-ray release (MSRP: $39.99) is better, but not by much: in addition to everything on the standard DVD and a digital copy of the film on a second disc, the Blu-ray version offers buyers a short feature on Whip It’s author/screenwriter (“Writers Draft with Shauna Cross”). Seeing as music sets the mood for many of the sequences on the track and the love scenes between Bliss and Oliver, it would’ve been nice to hear from Whip It’s music supervisor Randall Poster or Drew Barrymore on their choices. There is a Whip It soundtrack spot on both versions of the film, true, but only snippets from a handful of the songs are played over clips from the film to promote the CD. Why did they choose those particular songs for the scenes? Why was one song chosen for the underwater striptease scene and not another?
 Furthermore, why is there no blooper reel or behind-the-scenes footage of the cast’s roller derby training? In a film helmed by a comedic actress who gives the sense of being very hands-on in her approach, these last two extras shouldn’t have been left out. And even though there's a clear connection between Barrymore and the material, Whip It’s DVD/Blu-ray would have also benefited from an audio commentary on what drew Barrymore to the story and what her first-time experience directing was like.
Whip It is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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