Official Site of Marcia Gay Harden :: The Work

In a town near Austin, Bliss Cavendar's strong-willed mom believes Bliss, at 17, can win pageants - the key to a happy life. Bliss isn't the beauty pageant type: she's shy, quiet, and has just one friend, Pash, her fellow waitress at a diner. Things change for Bliss when she discovers a women's roller derby league in Austin, tries out, proves to be whip fast, and makes a team. Now she needs to become someone tough on the rink, keep her parents from finding out where she goes twice a week, and do something about a first crush, on a musician she meets at the derby. Meanwhile, mom still sees Bliss as Miss Bluebonnet. Things are on a collision course; will everyone get banged up?

Director: Drew Barrymore

Barrymore's directorial debut "Whip It" is an energetic delight

CinemaBlend — As earnest and adorable as she may be, Drew Barrymore's attempts at including girl power in her acting and producing career have often come across as strident or misguided, from the absent guns in the Charlie's Angels movies to whatever it is you want to call He's Just Not That Into You.
But blessed with a perfect subject matter and a confidence that comes across both on-camera and in her work behind it, Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It is an energetic delight. Set in the raucous and bruising world of female roller derby, the film is a sports movie and coming-of-age tale all wrapped within a kind of feminist rallying cry. Sure, it hits the point a little too neatly when one character encourages another to "be your own hero," but it's pretty much impossible for anyone, especially women, not to walk out of this movie feeling as powerful as those girls on skates.
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Misfits With Big Hearts and Roller-Derby Grit

NYTimes — Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is a Texas teenager whose mother (Marcia Gay Harden) pushes her along the beauty-pageant circuit, shaking her head and pursing her lips at her daughter’s mild gestures of rebellion. But hair dye and punk rock are only the beginning. Bliss stumbles into the world of competitive women’s roller derby, which improves her self-esteem, brings her some new friends and must be kept secret from her parents. (Dad, played by Daniel Stern, is a laid-back, beer-drinking football fan in a household dominated by women.)
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Here come the rollergirls

The Guardian — Rollergirls get the Hollywood treatment as Drew Barrymore makes her debut as a director... but Jessica Holland is the real thing When I went this month to an advance screening of "Whip It" – a teen movie about a small-town girl who joins a roller derby league in Austin, Texas – it wasn't just because I wanted to see how Drew Barrymore measured up as a first-time director, and because I like Ellen Page, who stars in Juno. It was mostly because I got hooked on roller derby three years ago in the same way Page's character does in the film, and I wanted to see how the sport is to be presented to the world. "Chicks beating each other up on roller skates" is the shorthand often used for women's flat track derby, but to me and 50 of my London Rollergirls teammates and rivals who were at the screening, that's about...
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