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Whip It
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 56 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Comedy | Drama
Written by: Shauna Cross
Directed by: Drew Barrymore
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 2, 2009
DVD: January 26, 2010
Running Time: 111 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content including crude dialogue, language and drug material
Starring Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Eve, Jimmy Fallon, Daniel Stern, and Drew Barrymore
A rebellious Texas teen trades in her small town beauty pageant crown for the rowdy world of roller derby. (Fox Searchlight)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
An unreasonably entertaining movie, causing you perhaps to revise your notions about women's Roller Derby, assuming you have any.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Sweet without being sticky and funny without getting silly, Whip It introduces Barrymore as a director with a keen eye, a good ear for tone and an inspired touch with actors.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Barrymore is terrific with her actors, finding moments for even the smallest supporting players.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
It's that happiest of surprises: a multiplex movie that genuinely respects its young audience.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
What makes Whip It a blast is the action in the rink. What gives Whip It heart is the pathos, pain and mettle-testing elements that accompany any serious athletic competition. It doesn't hurt that its diminutive star is surprisingly athletic and agile on the track.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Peter Brunette
Clicks on so many levels -- heartwarming family story, rough-and-tumble display of grrrl power and a secondary but tender and convincing romance.
Read Full Review >Variety Rob Nelson
Laced with good-natured hipster kitsch and endearingly goofy girl power, director Drew Barrymore's roller-derby dramedy, Whip It, is a gas.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf
Marcia Gay Harden is the picture’s treasure; watching her swell with concern at her daughter’s choices, you understand how hard it is to let go.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Barrymore’s casting choices are intrinsic to the success of the film. Lewis, under her rink name, Iron Maven, hasn’t had this meaty a role in maybe 15 years, while Wilson as the team’s shaggy male coach is a hoot to watch. Harden and Stern, as Bliss’ parents, create fleshed-out characters instead of lazy depictions of the paper tigers that grown-ups usually are in teens’ stories.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
What Barrymore brings is good-natured, girl-powered subversion, a sense of when to flaunt clichés and when to flip them over the rails.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Whip It (which takes its name from a play in which skaters hold hands and form a human whip to propel the last skater forward) is heaven on wheels.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Most crucially, Barrymore encourages Page to just let herself go. The sight of her making her way up residential streets in a pair of Barbie roller skates or screaming “Marco’’ in a game of Marco Polo is simply joyful.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Barrymore’s direction is generous to a fault, and there are times when you wish Whip It simply moved faster, on and off the track. It succeeds because of the emotional rather than comic payoffs.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Whip It is completely predictable from the first frame. It also is ridiculously, utterly entertaining.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Boisterous, cloying, simultaneously raunchy and innocent, hip and klutzy.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
For all the hip checks and bloody noses, it doesn't have a mean bone in its body.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Arriving on the nastier heels of the horror comedy "Jennifer's Body," Whip It plays like that movie's more wholesome twin, delivering the same jolt of anarchic guerrilla-girl empowerment, only with a far less threatening disposition.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
You might, nonetheless, want to see this movie, even -- or maybe especially -- if you have seen “Billy Elliot” or “Bend It Like Beckham.” Familiarity is not always a bad thing, and if the script, by Shauna Cross, piles sports movie and coming-of-age touchstones into a veritable cairn of clichés, the cast shows enough agility and conviction to make them seem almost fresh.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Page is softer than in "Hard Candy" and "Juno." Without Diablo Cody comebacks, she’s even more marvelous.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
At moments, especially in the conflicted intimacy between Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern as Bliss' parents, Barrymore shows real directing chops. But in Whip It she's painting inside the box.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The movie ended just in time. Any more of it, and I'd have been crying uncle. Or maybe, given the grrrl-power of it all, crying aunt. This is one supposedly contrarian film that rouses the counter-contrarian in you.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
The result is a film that is equal parts fluff and tough.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Jessica Baxter
Whip It doesn’t just refer to whipping around the track or whipping ass. It’s about a girl who must whip herself into shape and grow up.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The derby sequences are just OK, and the conflict between Bliss and her uncomprehending parents, played by Marcia Gay Harden and (a fine) Daniel Stern, is so predictable that you wish someone had rolled onto the set to whip it into shape.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
It’s virtually impossible to hate the film, but Barrymore’s presence behind the camera suggests more calculation than vision; like a lot of actors who direct, she tends to the performances, but her style never rises above bland proficiency.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The movie is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut (she also plays fellow Hurl Scout Smashley Simpson), and it's clear she's more attuned to grrrlishness than real athletic power.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
Highlights: Andrew Wilson as the roller girls' coach (ah, so there's the Wilson brother who can act) and the roller-derby vets (played especially well by Juliette Lewis and Kristen Wiig) about whom we learn just enough to wish the movie was focused on them instead.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
At its best, this could have been a passable distraction and at its worst, it could have been unwatchable. Barrymore manages to bring it in somewhere in between those extremes.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Has such a sweet spirit that it's easy enough to let its flaws sail by.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 56 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Bryant gave it a5:
Very average -- certainly not worthy of so many critic's high scores.
Jon W gave it a9:
Loved it. Would happily see it again. A triumph fro Drew.
Winston L gave it a10:
EVERYTHING about this movie is simply Oscar-worthy.
Doug G gave it a3:
Not sure why this movie is so highly rated. The words and actions of the characters make no sense. Even my girlfirend agreed. We rolled our eyes at each other at least 5 times during the movie.
Edward K gave it a6:
A coming-of-age comedy that doesn't break much new ground, Whip It! did what it wants to do well enough to keep me interested throughout the film. It features another excellent performance from Ellen Page.
Mary M gave it a9:
Unexpectedly entertaining and real. I'm as old (probably) as the "mom' in the film, but I was able to identify in some way to both the daughter and the mom. Well done, Drew!
Steve C gave it a10:
I know and i am good friends with one of the actors in the movie. So its fucking awesome
