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Thursday, December 30, 2010

BD impressions: Whip It

6:44 PM / BD Impressions / 3 Comments

The film: Despite its unashamedly derivative nature and a largely pointless romantic subplot, I really enjoyed WHIP IT, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. With Ellen Page in the lead role and Fox Searchlight as the studio behind it, it's tempting to compare it against JUNO, which is not entirely unreasonable: it has a similar (albeit less abrasive) tone and is essentially yet another "coming of age" tale of teenage angst, albeit with pregnancy replaced by roller derby.

Now, I don't know the first thing about the rules of roller derby and the film doesn't exactly go to great lengths to explain them, but in the end it doesn't really matter and I suspect that's because, as much as the derby scenes take up a major portion of the film's running time, both the humour and the pathos are situated at a far more personal level. I must admit I'm not entirely sold on Ellen Page - not to say she isn't a talented actress, just that she has certain quirks in every performance of hers that I've seen which for some reason grate with me - but she's a lot more likeable here than when playing Juno MacGuff, simply because the character, Bliss, is far less deliberately obnoxious. Great performances by Daniel Stern (whom I actually hadn't seen in anything since the HOME ALONE movies - man, he's aged) and Marcia Gay Harden as Bliss' parents, not to mention Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Zoë Bell et al as the skaters, and some really nice photography courtesy of Robert Yeoman, one of those "workman" cinematographers whose name shows up in the credits for everything from crummy Jim Carrey comedies to Wes Anderson's films. I'd be surprised if WHIP IT sets anyone's world on fire, but I really enjoyed it and would certainly recommend giving it a look. (I actually thought it was slightly better than JUNO, but don't tell anyone.) 8/10

Image quality: A solid encode of a superb-looking master. Very little to say here - 10/10.

Whip It
studio: Lions Gate; country: UK; region code: B; codec: AVC;
file size: 29.2 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 37.78 Mbit/sec

3 Comments

 
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