Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut “Whip It” is so overflowing with enthusiastic performances that it is impossible to watch it and not have a good time.

Sure, you may notice an over-reliance on music montages to show the evolution of a budding teenage romance. You may also think you know where the movie is headed from the first moments. Since it’s a sports film (based on the rough n’ tumble female roller derby leagues in Austin, TX), you also understand that everything is leading up to the big game.

But you know what? With as much energy as Barrymore puts into every part of the movie, it’s a joy to watch small-town beauty queen Bliss Cavendar (played by Ellen Page from “Juno”) turn into badass punky rollergirl Babe Ruthless, even if it isn’t completely believable that it happens that fast.

Based on the book Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, an actual Texas Rollergirl, “Whip It” casts poor Bliss as a girl who wants more out of life than her stereotypical small Texas town can offer. Her Mom, a former pageant winner herself (played by Marcia Gay Harden), is living out her dreams again through her daughter. But Bliss wears her Mom’s old Christian heavy-metal band T-shirt for irony’s sake and wants cool thrift shop clothes.

Naturally, she’s bound for Austin.

As high-school misfit Bliss meets and all-too-quickly joins up with the losingest team on the roller derby circuit, she finds a new group of friends and a community that she finally fits into, even if it is populated by thirtysomethings Kristen Wiig (playing Maggie Mayhem, the actual stage name of Cross) and Drew Barrymore (as the always-late and accident-prone Smashley Simpson).

South Street, Waterloo Records, the Alamo Drafthouse, and other ultra-cool Austin hangouts are the backdrop for a love affair Bliss has with a younger Richard Ashcroft look-alike (Landon Pigg) who—like everyone in Austin—plays in a band. Even though they rarely have any intelligent dialogue between them onscreen, they quickly fall in love. (Come to think of it, many early relationships are like this—based mostly on “newness” and physical attraction.)

OK. I just read everything I’ve written so far and it sounds like I’m really bagging on this film. I’m not. I shouldn’t be. Because for as much of “Whip It” is by-the-books in the screenplay department, Barrymore manages to put forth a real sense of sweetness and unruliness at the same time.

The core of the movie is Bliss’ relationship with her mother (who now works as a postal carrier), and the scenes between Harden and Page are some of the best in the movie. Where some films might underestimate the importance of the mother/daughter relationship and instead focus on more violent girl-on-girl action, Barrymore doesn’t abbreviate it at all. She understands this is what the entire movie hinges on and both director and actresses approach these scenes with subtlety.

Even the roller derby girls get ample screen time to flesh out their characters. Wiig especially shines as she is revealed to have motherly instincts lurking under her aggressive exterior. Juliette Lewis, who begins the film as one-note bad girl Iron Maven, shows a surprising amount of depth by the end.

For as much convention as “Whip It” adheres to, it also sports a stubbornly independent streak. A break-up between two major characters is handled in uncharacteristic fashion, and even the climax of the movie has some nice left turns on its way to its inevitable conclusion.

The marvel of “Whip It” is that Barrymore’s freewheeling spirit is infectious, even when her direction borders on sloppiness and the script skirts with cliché. That is the sign of a natural director.

Tags: barrymore, derby, lewis, movie, movie review, page, review, roller, whip it, whip it review, wiig

Click here for my Sundance interview with director Greg Mottola.

First things first: Although “Adventureland” is written and directed by Greg Mottola—who directed “Superbad”—it is not the same kind of over-the-top comedy as that movie (which was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg). If you go in expecting “Superbad II,” like most people this weekend will thanks to the film’s marketing campaign, it may take a while to adjust to the movie’s pacing and subtle characterizations. But don’t worry—“Adventureland” is a terrific film all by itself.

There is one comparative line to draw here, however. Mottola’s semi-autobiographical movie feels like what might have happened the year that the “Freaks and Geeks” came home from college. Mottola directed six episodes of Judd Apatow’s TV show “Undeclared,” a college-aged follow-up to the now-classic-but-canceled “Freaks and Geeks.” Like Apatow, he has an uncanny ability to find the natural rhythm of uncomfortable exchanges between emotionally unsure people.

Those moments are at the heart of this touching and seemingly effortless film, which finds James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) spending the summer after college graduation at his parents’ house in a Pittsburgh suburb. “Adventureland” explores the last gasp of James’ old life and the transition to adulthood. (It’s fitting that The Replacements’ ode to aimlessness, “Bastards of Young,” opens the movie.) He’s desperate to grow up, but his progress is stopped in time when he’s forced to work a shitty job at a rundown amusement park.

The year is 1987, presumably because Mottola’s own experiences also coincide with this time period, but the setting also gives the film a simultaneously innocent and nostalgic vibe. The theme park becomes the meeting place for all James’ friends, including romantic interest Em (Kristen Stewart)—also home from college—who has a similar attitude towards the summer job and has lived through her own recent personal tragedy.

Everybody who works at Adventureland is stuck in neutral, from the socially awkward and increasingly bitter Russian literature student Joel (Martin Starr), to Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the married maintenance guy who regularly cheats on his wife. There’s also Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), the well-endowed trendy girl that all the guys fantasize about, and the married couple (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig) that run the park from a trailer with a quiet, forced pride.

The hierarchies of high school are always in play. Lisa P. is at the top of the heap, one of the lucky ride operators, while James is pegged as more of a “games guy.” Connell is the older cool guy, having supposedly once “jammed with Lou Reed.” He’s one part Matthew McConaughey from “Dazed and Confused,” while also trying to set himself above the younger employees by referring to them as “kids.” Of course, James looks up to Connell. Reynolds is perfectly cast, playing a sad, older version of some of his past roles. If “Van Wilder” is still around in his early thirties, he’s probably banging high school chicks in his Mom’s basement.

Mottola’s direction is assured and impressively naturalistic for a teen-oriented comedy. He cuts through the cliches and expresses the longing that most movies of this ilk couldn’t find with a compass. He also has a way with his actors, getting subtle performances out of all of them (even the usually ‘bigger’ talents of Saturday Night Live’s Wiig and Hader). Eisenberg (who also starred as an introspective young talker in “The Squid and the Whale”) brings a Woody Allen-type neurotic touch to James, who’s goal of saving his virginity for the right girl isn’t so much a conscious choice as it is an extension of his idealism. Em, on the other hand, is way beyond that, redirecting all her confusion and self-pity from her crappy homelife into a hollow secret relationship.

You can see the conflict in their romance coming a mile away, but that’s not a criticism at all. In a more formulaic movie, that inevitable “blow-up” moment can leave you feeling cheated if the film has done nothing to foreshadow the characters’ actions. In “Adventureland,” you empathize with Jesse and Em even when they make poor choices. It’s a sign of how much they mean to each other that they can’t quite communicate it.

This brings up another great element of Mottola’s script: There are no “bad guys.” There are just three-dimensional people who sometimes do stupid things. This goes for Jesse and Em as much as it does for the characters that draw them apart (who, in turn, also have their sympathetic moments). You’d think he’d have learned more about women in college, but when he’s with Em, James immediately starts talking about how his heart was broken recently in a knee-jerk play for sympathy or maybe a misguided attempt at showing maturity. He’s also kind of a pompous egghead who feels like he has to prattle on about Shakespeare in order to impress. It’s impossible, though, to hate him or anybody else in “Adventureland.”

Although the dialogue is right on for the time period and very funny (As much fun as it was, that’s a kind of realism that can’t be said about “Juno.”), Mottola is also quite adept at letting a lack of dialogue speak loudly as well. In one telling scene, Em gives James a ride home and pops in a cassette. Without saying a word, the two glance at each other, the windows, the stereo, and the floor. The scene is certainly about their mutual attraction and curiosity, but it’s also about status. What’s unspoken is that Em is feeling out James’ musical tastes. As they both try to pretend nothing is going on, James makes his move, reaching for the volume knob to turn it up. A connection is made. (The song is Husker Du’s “Don’t Want to Know if You’re Lonely” and is one of many great tunes on the soundtrack.)

Music plays a big part of “Adventureland.” A key moment of self-confidence and realization for James comes from seeing someone he looked up to getting a song title wrong. A little detail like that calls the person out as a fraud. And while awful 80s one-hit-wonders like “Rock Me Amadeus” play ad nauseum at the park, Mottola doesn’t dress everybody in the movie with outlandish 1980s clothes and use the setting as a crutch for cheap jokes. He’s more interested in getting it right. The movie has its moments of fun with the 80s, but it doesn’t dwell on them.

“Adventureland” captures perfectly that feeling of weightlessness just before impending adulthood. At once a personal and generational film, it also carries a poetic kind of melancholy that’s unique to movies of its kind, save for maybe “Say Anything” or “Dazed and Confused.”

This point loomed heavy in my mind after a second viewing of the movie: When somebody throws up in “Adventureland” (In a movie populated by rollercoasters and drinking, that’s kind of a given), it’s not presented as a big gross-out laugh like it would be in a more obvious comedy. Instead, it’s just something that happens. People throw up. And, like the messiness of life—someone is going to have to clean it up.

Tags: adventureland, Bill, eisenberg, film, greg, hader, jesse, kristen, mottola, movie, positive, rating, rave, review, stewart, wiig