Whip It -- a Drew Barrymore film

While this film ostensibly tells a heart-warming bildungsroman of a young woman in Texas as she drops the dreams of her beauty-pageant mother for the adrenaline appeal of Roller Derby, Barrymore has subverted the script into a documentary snapshot exploration of the theme: 'Will Ellen Page Go From Nubile To Smokin?'

Throughout the film, we are reminded of Beauty's Transience, first through the beauty pageant mothers tending to their budding swans, then as the older roller derby skaters make way for the younger. Likewise, as the story traces its arc, so does Ellen's amount of clothing. As the pool scene demonstrates, Ellen's currently wending her way through that hallowed nether world combining late adolescence with an inkling of hot.

In 2009's otherwise weak crop of documentaries, Barrymore has outdone herself and the field.