Bliss Cavender [Ellen Page] finds herself lost in the small town of Bodeen socially and decides to head over to Austin one day and check out this roller derby thing and it turns out she likes it.  She now is forced to lead a double life as she tries to balance the life of Bliss – a calm and well-behaved child who does her best to please her parents – and her alter-ego ‘Babe Ruthless’ – the swift on her heels and tough as nails roller derby athlete – so as not to throw off either group (i.e. the roller derby crown or her parents) to the idea that the either exists.

So this movie is neither spectacular, bad, nor run of the mill; the movie is really one of the movies that decide to find an odd spot between amazing and completely generic and at the same time be completely unique in its own way.  I personally can’t decide what it was specifically that I liked about this movie.  Was it that Ellen Page was in it?  Was it that Drew Barrymore directed a pretty solid movie?  Was it that even though the sport that the ladies were playing made absolutely no sense to me and didn’t seem to have that strict a rule system I found myself still interested in the matches whenever there was one to watch?  I’m not sure.

What totally worked for me, character-wise, were Bliss’ best friend Pash [Alia Shawkat] and the team coach Razor [Andrew Wilson].  Pash was the character that helped us to believe that Bliss would be able to grow the balls to rebel against her parents and join this insane sport.  Pash gave us that best friend relationship where they are both, more or less, outcasts from the social scene (Bliss more than Pash) and ended up being a perfect match for each other.  I had no problem anytime I was able to sit and enjoy watching Pash and Bliss just hang out.  Razor on the other hand is the coach of the Scouts (the roller derby team that Bliss joins) who sees the potential in Bliss and tries to rally the team out of their losing funk.  The charisma in Andrew’s character is great to see.  Razor is definitely one of the highlights of the film for me since he may be the only one who takes the game a bit too seriously and in the end brings a lot of fun to the movie.

To answer the question as to whether there was anything particularly distinct about this film that looks like what will be Drew Barrymore’s signature as a director is a bit tough.  I can’t be sure because since she didn’t write the movie (and I haven’t read the source material) I don’t know exactly what she added or removed, if anything.  However, the movie had a very odd feel to it.  At times I had to question if the camera was showing me Bliss’ perspective of her surroundings or if I was just someone who was there telling Bliss’ tale from my own perspective.  All of the characters that weren’t friendly to Bliss just seemed so stupid and hick Americans that you wonder how exaggerated certain parts of the story was.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it is always something I’m interested in since I do believe that every story has a storyteller and each person will have their own versions of the same story.  In this instance however, I did like the perspective I was given and it definitely is a good point to the movie.

In the end I guess I like the movie but I’m not saying that this movie is something that you need to rush out and see.  I’d actually say that this movie is more of a rental than a full price at the theatre kind of flick, but at the same time I enjoyed myself watching it and for that I applaud it and all the people involved in it.  I am still very curious in how Drew Barrymore moves forward as a director and hope she turns out to be one of those that we will always look forward to seeing films from.

IMDB says 7.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 82%

I say 6.5/10