Fun. This movie was just really fun. Roller-skating, dreams, romance, family issues and friendship came together beautifully.
Ellen Page (Juno, Inception) plays Bliss, a 17-year-old girl more into indie and bohemian stuff rather than her mother’s (Marcia Gay Harden) obsessive interest in beauty pageants. Bliss and her best friend are bored to death by their small town Bodeen and Bliss finds the perfect escapism when she gets a flyer for a roller derby in Austin.
These roller-skating chicks fascinate her. She works really hard and manages to get into a team. This is where the fun actually starts. Her team mates (rap singer Eve, Drew Barryomore, Saturday Night Live’ s Kristen Wiig) are all fun loving young(ish) women with fun nicknames. Their coach is a nice guy named Razor (Andrew Wilson) whose problem is that while his team loves the game, they don’t seem to mind losing all the time. So he is delighted to have Bliss: she is fast and determined. She has many problems though: She doesn’t seem tough enough and her biggest rival Maven (Juliette Lewis) really hates her. She has lied about her age to get in and her parents have no idea what she is really doing….
Yeah, this is one of those coming-of-age stories. We watch Bliss’ first passion, first love (band singer Oliver, played by Landon Pigg), her relationship with her not-always-understanding parents. But Drew Barrymore (also the director of the movie) has done a great job of entertaining the audience and making us empathize with the characters. Despite all the themes you have seen before (maybe with the exception of a roller derby), the movie has a certain freshness to it. All the actors are lovely but of course Ellen Page owns the film. The movie is based on the novel of Shauna Cross. Shauna Cross wrote the screenplay herself.
Rated 7.1 on IMDB. I think anywhere between 6-7 is just fine.
Fun Facts:
– Despite looking really 17, Ellen Page is actually 23 in this movie.
– Landon Pigg is really a singer in real life, this is first major role.
– The coach is played by Andrew Wilson, who is the brother of Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson.
– The roller derby is host is played by Jimmy Fallon.
– Pay attention how “Pash and Bliss” rewrite the lyrics of the song Joleen for Bodeen.
Don’t worry. You do get to know what’s with the weird suit, where (most of) Donnie (J. Gyllenhaal) ‘s troubles come from.You will however probably be left with some questions in your head so I suggest the director’s cut.
