Interview

You've got to hand it to Drew Barrymore: Between Poison Ivy, Charlie's Angels, and her newest project and first gig as a director Whip It!, she brings on the girl-power like few other womyn in the business. In the newly released trailer for the film, which opens on October 9, Ellen Page (from Juno superfame) returns to the big-screen as another alterna-teen, Bliss, trying to find her way in the conservative Texas town of Bodeen. An unwilling beauty pageant competitor, Bliss rebels against her parents by dying her hair blue and finding her true passion in roller derby.

Whip It! has all the ingredients for a sleeper hit: Mix in Ellen Page, a dollop of coming-of-age quirkiness, the thrill of competitive sport, and add in a cast of babes kicking ass on roller skates, and it's hard to see where this one will go wrong. The trailer gives special emphasis to comic supporting player Kristen Wiig (from SNL), but Barrymore herself also gets screen time as tough team-member Smashley Simpson, along with other bad girls Juliette Lewis, Zoe Bell, Alia Shawkat and rapper-turned actress Eve. Based on young writer Shauna Cross's young-adult novel Derby Girl, the film will be released by Fox Seachlight, which has a history of making box-office gold out of this sort of thing (i.e. Garden State, Little Miss Sunshine).