Whip It is a great movie with an impressively woman-centric pedigree. It’s Drew Barrymore’s directoral debut. Screenwriter Shauna Cross adapted her own novel about an Austin rolly derby team. The cast features a bunch of awesome actresses, and the plot is about female bonding and family.

Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a seventeen-year-old girl living in Bo Dean, Texas. Bliss’s free spirit puts her at odds with her pageant-obsessed mother and football-loving father. When Bliss attends a roller derby, it’s love at first sight. She joins the Hurl Scouts, an Austin derby team, and suddenly she’s Babe Ruthless, bonding with her teammates, hip-checking competitors, and defying her parents.

This movie is a lot like Bend It Like Beckham, if you set it in Texas and substitute roller derby for soccer. Just to be clear, that’s a compliment; both are movies that show believable, idiosyncratic family relationships.

The movie alternates between action (derby competitions) and narrative, (Bliss’s personal journey). The derby bouts are really fun. Most of the cast did their own skating, and the athleticism of the sport is truly impressive. The movie does a good job of incorporating a tutorial on the derby rules so the audience can really get into the suspense.

The narrative is a pretty standard sports story. The ending might be unexpected by Hollywood standards because it’s almost too girl-friendly (read: competition isn’t everything!). But this movie is character-driven at its heart, and the stellar cast really makes you care about the people involved.

Ellen Page looks about the same as she did Juno, but her character in Whip It was so much cooler that I found myself liking her a lot more. Alia Shakwat does a great job as Pash, Bliss’s wild best friend (in a fun departure from Shakwat’s previous straightlaced “Arrested Development” role, I might add). And Landon Pigg, as Bliss’ love interest Oliver, is the perfect shaggy-haired teen dream.

Marcia Gay Harden is outstanding as Bliss’s mother. The always Oscar-worthy actress went to school in Texas, so she knows what she’s doing here—no tired Southern clichés anywhere, thank goodness. I spent the entire movie trying to figure out why Bliss’ father looked so familiar. It was Daniel Stern, hiding behind a Texas accent. Stern and Harden are responsible for some of the best moments in the movie as Bliss’s parents struggle to accept their daughter’s choices.

The rest of the Hurl Scouts also deliver great performances. As Maggie Mayhem, Kristen Wiig shows she can play it straight. Real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell does some awesome skating as Bloody Holly. As Rosa Sparks and Smashley Simpson, Eve and Drew Barrymore have smaller rolls, yet it’s almost more distracting to see them on the screen because they’re so recognizable. But every one of the derby girls is convincingly tough yet tender, as you’d expect.

As Hurl Scouts coach Razor, Andrew Wilson (brother to Luke and Owen) delivers a performance that I can only describe as perfectly, weirdly Austin. (Sorry, I’ll admit I’ve got a sentimental attachment to that city.) And finally, Juliette Lewis plays the perfect bad girl: Iron Maven—no, seriously, I was actually scared of her character.

This is a solidly funny, sweet movie that is safe for the whole family—honestly, I don’t even know why it’s PG-13. There’s no nudity, and the references to sex so veiled as to be appropriate for an after-school special. So go ahead, take your daughter to Whip It and support those ladies with your box office dollars. Just don’t be surprised if she wants to start skating.