The main character of the film Whip It!, Bliss is 17 years old and lives in Bodeen, Texas (which she thinks is a pretty lousy place) and works at the Oink Joint. Is it any wonder she wants to escape?! I don’t know. My mom never pushed me to participate in beauty pageants, and that’s a significant difference.
But listen, everything changes when Bliss finds a flyer advertising a roller derby league for girls.
From here, we find out that “Whip It!” is a really CUTE movie, but not much more than that. It’s not funny enough to be a comedy, not dramatic enough to be a drama, and as a sports film, it’s pretty thin (though it works best in this category). It gets bonus points for avoiding the biggest clichés of sports movies. As a coming-of-age story, it doesn’t quite hold up either, because every conflict is ridiculously clichéd and we’ve seen them all a thousand times before. Plus, in this movie, it turns out every character, even the nastiest roller girl, has a heart of gold.
As for Bliss… well, her rebellion against her parents is pretty mild. Her best friend, for instance, is a NERD.
The weakest part of all is the romantic subplot. Bliss’s love interest is less appealing than Birdman, the loser from the Oink Joint.
So what’s the deal?