When drama is rushed it can feel like the slowest thing in the world. The characters never get any time to breathe. The turmoil that they go through feels so compact, tidy, and meager that it's like your watching nothing at all. The quest for life's answers in the "missunderstood teenager" way, with the mandatory pushy mother and the quiet but understanding father seems like a subject done before. This movie is way too bland, stale, and unbelievable to really find the heart. I compare it to Bend it like Beckham, but without the good, funny or interesting parts. I liked the idea of this film, it had potential. Ellen Paige is great, as always, but the rest of the cast could have been exchanged for puppets and no on would have been able to tell the difference. I thought the ending too obvious and forced compared to the rest of it, and needed a more inspired and extended premise and execution for fullest success. It seemed rushed and inconsistent with the buildup to it. The movie is, too be frank, about a bunch of girl riding around in circles on rollerskating. And just as exiting as that sounds.
Review of Whip It
