Before I explain, I should point out that men aren't the enemies here. I don't know that films made by women are necessarily different from most films, but films made by feminists are and this movie, once it finds its feet, is a case in point. Can the sisterhood survive it? And is mum going to find out what young Bliss is getting up to-where those bruises are from? The two best pals discover roller derby together in the big smoke-nearby Austin-but when Bliss falls in love with a boy in a band the friendship comes under some strain. Bliss is a bit of an outsider at high school, her town is bland, she has a part-time job in a faded diner where she spends most of her time goofing off with co-worker and best buddy Pash, (the wonderful Alia Martine Shawkat, a sassy young actress with a spray of freckles who steals a couple of scenes). Whip It begins like a conventional indie teenage movie. And why wouldn't Drew Barrymore, who's seen the sleazy side to Hollywood since her child star beginnings, be a feminist director? Whip It, as a film, mixes it up too, flirting with the sexploitative elements of B-moviedom, but delivering a film with a strong feminist undercurrent. But typically, they flaunt an in-your-face aesthetic-combining elements of punk with 50s pin-up style, burlesque and so on. Yes, they're curvaceous, muscular women wrestling each other. Part of the radical side to the sport is the way the athletes mess with male sexual fantasies. Writer Shauna Cross, who adapted this screenplay from her own novel, is a real life roller derby athlete. In real life it has its roots in the 60s and 70s (as far as I can tell it was played by both sexes) but it's been rekindled with third wave feminism and the underground scene in the US. If, like me, you hadn't encountered roller derby before, it's more or less a sport played by two teams of women on roller skates, trying to smash each other off a circular track. With her skates on, Bliss finds true passion. She joins a team called the 'Hurl Scouts'-a group of tattooed, pierced, fishnet-stockinged vixens who become like a brood of very cool big sisters (Zoe Bell, Kristen Wiig, Drew Barrymore and others). But Bliss, behind her mother's back, finds a different form of female competition in the sweaty, gritty, bruising sport of roller derby. Whip It is a coming of age story, an indie ode to the sisterhood, the tale of Bliss (Ellen Page), a girl in a small Texan town who competes in beauty pageants to please her ambitious, conservative mother (Marcia Gay Harden).