No bad guys = no movie

Rating: 5/10 (9 November 2011)

This movie is like that first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Gene Roddenberry was falling all over himself to prove how much better his new show and new crew were than the old one. Part of that was the conceit that by the time of Picard and company, humanity had evolved to a point where no one argued with anyone else. There would be no conflict between any of the main characters, neither a cross word nor an evil eye. T hey were supposed to be above the sort of squabbling we saw from Kirk, Bones and Spock and it was only our excitement over finally having new Star Trek on TV that kept us from realizing how lame that was. A world where no one quarrels with anyone else might be a great place to live but it's a terrible thing to watch. These filmmakers echo Roddenberry's ego with their refusal to let anyone play the bad guy in Whip It. Without a bad guy, though, you not only have no real threat or challenge to your hero, you don't have much of a hero at all.
Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is a 17 year old girl in Bodeen, Texas. She works at the Oink Joint with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) and is getting pushed into the beauty pageant world by her mother (Marcia Gay Harden). However, Bliss is hardly some pageant girl. She dresses like she stepped off the CD cover of some alternative rock band and wants something, anything more than the life she feels her mother nudging her into. Then Bliss discovers the world of roller derby and a team called the Hurl Scouts that play in nearby Austin. She lies about her age to join the league and becomes a star, all the while hiding her new hobby from her parents. Bliss even falls in first love with the lead singer of a band. Everything seems wonderful until, and I hope this won't be too much of a shock, it all goes wrong. Her parents find out about the derby, a competitor finds out Bliss is too young to be skating, she finds out her new boyfriend is apparently cheating on her, etc. Don't worry, though. Since everybody in this film is just so darn decent and good and honorable, nothing really bad (or meaningful) is allowed to happen.
Other than far too much of Jimmy Fallon as a jagoff derby announcer, there's nothing else too dreadful about Whip It. Writer Shauna Cross and director Drew Barrymore create some believably funny and human relationships and come up with a surprisingly effective character in the male coach of the Hurl Scouts. Unfortunately, all that good work is undone by this movie's unwillingness to let any problem become too daunting or any person become too much of an a-hole. Let me give you some examples.
Bliss's attraction to the roller derby only connects with the audience to the extent that it's a joyous escape from a miserable existence. If her life isn't miserable, than roller derby can't be anything more than a lark. If Bliss's mother were a controlling shrew living out her dreams through her daughter and if her father was emotionally distant and disconnected, if her job at the Oink Joint or her life at school were especially difficult or degrading, if she was facing abuse or deprivation or rejection or some kind, then you could cheer for her fleeing to the larger-than-life world of roller derby. But Cross and Barrymore go to great lengths to make sure Bliss' mom and dad are shockingly non-horrible in the eyes of the viewer. What little we see of her time at school or work is no worse than any other teenager's. Bliss' 17 year old life is pointedly devoid of trauma or tragedy. And that extends to pretty much everything in Whip It. It turns out the boyfriend she thought cheated on her may not have. The competitor who threatened to turn her in, decides she'd rather beat Bliss on the track. Every single person in this story who could have been a potential antagonist winds up neutered with niceness.
These filmmakers also don't appear to understand that a motion picture is more than a series of scenes. Actions and events and even behavior is supposed to build one upon another until it leads to some kind of climax or resolution. That focus is lacking here. When we first meet the Hurl Scouts, they're a lovable band of losers who couldn't care less if they ever win match. As the film goes along, they become better and more competitive and care about winning. Then when the big championship battle comes against their arch rivals, they lose and suddenly winning is irrelevant to them and, clearly, it's supposed to be equally irrelevant to the audience. And it's not like they lose for a reason, like they decided there was something more important than winning. They just get beat and don't care.
Whip It is a lot of tasty frosting covering a dry and tasteless birthday cake. If you're content to scrape off the frosting and enjoy that, it's not bad but everything underneath will leave you unsatisfied.