Watch Whip It

Whip It is long-time actress and former child-star Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. It stars Canadian actress Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar, a high school girl whose mother lives vicariously through her by forcing her to attend beauty pageant upon beauty pageant. Outside of the pageants, Bliss is a reserved, slightly nerdy young girl who is teased by more popular kids. She is sometimes tormented by another girl at school. She also works as a waitress at a small town diner, but she is unhappy with her boring, pageant-filled life and longs for an escape. She finds that escape in Austin, when she joins a roller derby team called The Hurl Scouts. There, she can let out her pent up frustration by skating and engaging in rough, sometimes violent behavior on the track. While some of Bliss’s teammates oppose her at first, her talent as a skater earns her the respect of her team