Whip It greatly benefits from Barrymore’s breezy approach and her large female cast’s camaraderie.
Comment
09/15/09
Whip It (2009)
82
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:142
Fresh:117
Rotten:25
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: While made from overly familiar ingredients, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut has enough charm, energy, and good-natured humor to transcend its many cliches.
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with this feisty, female-friendly action-comedy. JUNO's Ellen Page stars as Bliss Cavendar, a young woman who longs to break free of her small-town bonds... [More]
Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Drew Barrymore
Director: Drew Barrymore
Reviews for Whip It
Actor Ellen Page can do no wrong. Unfortunately director Drew Barrymore, screenwriter Shauna Cross, and cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman can.
09/19/09
Laced with good-natured hipster kitsch and endearingly goofy girl power, director Drew Barrymore's roller-derby dramedy, Whip It, is a gas.
09/14/09
Top CriticWhip It suggests what might have happened if Juno had gone to a high school as poky as Napoleon Dynamite's and decided that although her mother wanted her to be a beauty queen like Little Miss Sunshine, she'd rather just strap on roller skates.
09/30/09
Page is ill-served by Barrymore, whose only directions apparently were shrieks of "Cuter! No, even cuter!"...turgid, predictable and not particularly funny.
09/29/09
This film is so boring that after an hour I was ready to bolt. It picked up a little in the last 50 minutes, but not enough to recommend.
10/03/09
Whip It ended up being a total blast. For her first film as a director, Barrymore's done a bang-up job.
09/25/09
Drew Barrymore has successfully directed a generally fun roller derby movie that never loses sight that the main character's journey should always be kept front and center.
09/30/09
Oh my, ladies: how our fairy tales have changed! A league of rough and tumble women, skating, fighting, competing and whipping their art through otherwise terribly ordinary lives.
09/29/09
I didn't love Whip It, but I found myself enjoying it, almost against my will.
10/02/09
Manages to make a sport about women on roller skates beating the crap out of each other tedious.
10/01/09
Barrymore has made a highly promising debut behind the camera and created a first-rate, funny, heart-filled and totally winning entertainment that not only rolls, it rocks.
09/17/09
It's just "Footloose" goes to the roller derby.
10/14/09
Whip It is an unexpectedly touching film about female empowerment.
10/02/09
It will not change the way you think about movies, roller derby or the relations between teenage girls and their mothers, friends or dreams. But it does invite you to stop and appreciate all those things.
10/02/09
Top Critic...a fun female-empowerment movie that marks an impressively crowd-pleasing directorial debut for Drew Barrymore.
09/28/09
Love may be too strong a word, for me. But I'm deeply in like with Whip It.
10/02/09
One of the best girl casts of the year. You don't leave wanting to pick up the DVD, but you do want to pick up a set of dumbbells.
10/05/09
Barrymore makes her directorial debut her with an astute eye for the complex emotional passage being experienced beneath Bliss's crash helmet.
10/16/09
Thoroughly delightful, invigorating and captivating with just the right balance of drama and comedy.
10/02/09
Latest News for Whip It
October 01, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Zombieland Is Bloody Good
This week at the movies, we've got zombie zaniness (Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg); derby dolls (Whip it, starring Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page);... More...
October 01, 2009:
Whip It Good: Our Favorite Rollerskating Jams
As Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka so eloquently put it: "If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates." Indeed. Yet while this week's Drew... More...
September 28, 2009:
Drew Barrymore Calls the Shots with Whip It 
Many years after a six-year-old Drew Barrymore handed Steven Spielberg a copy of her first script, she's ready to unveil her directorial debut with "Whip It." More...
July 19, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
More...
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