Whip It movie review & film summary (2009)

She begins a series of secret bus trips to Austin which last for an entire season -- much too long for her parents not to notice, but never mind. She auditions in her pink Barbie clamp-ons for the Hurl Scouts team. Lying about her age, and against all odds, she's allowed by the coach, known as Razor (Andrew Wilson), to give it a try. The team veterans are dubious, but she has pluck and speed and doesn't mind getting knocked around. It's worth noting that Page and the other actresses, some of them real Derby stars, do almost all their own skating.

She takes the name Babe Ruthless. Other competitors are known as Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Smashley Simpson (Barrymore herself), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell), Rosa Sparks (Eve) and Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor). Juliette Lewis is fiercely competitive as Iron Maven, the leader of another team. Such stage names, or track names, are common in Roller Derby, and one real-life Derby girl is known as Sandra Day O'Clobber.

The screenplay is by a Los Angeles Derby Dolls star named Shauna Cross, the original Maggie Mayhem; it's based on her novel Derby Girl. It neatly balances Bliss' derby career and her situation at home, where her dad (Daniel Stern) escapes to pro sports on TV to escape his insufferable wife. Well, OK, she's not insufferable, simply an extreme type of a stage mother whose values, as her daughter informs her, are based on a 1950s idea of womanhood. Probably Bliss' poor mom was dominated by her own overbearing mother.

Bliss is at a hormonal age when she really likes cute boys and is drawn to a young rock band member named Oliver (Landon Pigg). She experiences this relationship in admirable PG-13 terms, and during her season with the Hurl Scouts, learns much about her physical and personality strengths. Odd as it may seem, her Roller Derby experience is a coming-of-age process.

Ellen Page, still only 22, is the real thing. To see her in this, "Juno" and "Hard Candy" (2005) is to realize she's fearless, completely in command of her gifts and will be around for a long time. To learn that she will play the lead in a BBC Films production of "Jane Eyre," being produced by Alison Owen ("Elizabeth"), seems only natural.