Common Sense Note
Parents should know the film includes some mild language, including adolescent girls talking back to adults (coaches and parents), as well as mouthing off to one another ("crap," piss," bitch," s-word, for examples). Movie opens with a girl on a bike crashing through a house window, which leads to her arrest (sirens, handcuffs). The film explores some mature themes in mostly satirical manner: lying, cheating, career-ending injury, jealousy, holding grudges, divorce, and rebellious teens. The movie features several close-up shots of gymnasts' bottoms, some scenes where gymnasts are injured (for example, a girl falls off a beam, writhes in pain, and the coach disdains her, creating a "comic" moment). Characters discuss a painful moment from the past when a girl learned her mother was sleeping with her coach, divorced parents fight. Adults at a party appear drunk.
Families can discuss "teenage rebellion": How can this typical situation be a healthy experience, offering opportunities for kids and adults to learn from each other? How does Haley's anger at her parents initially block her ability to work with her teammates and coach? How might gymnastics, which involves judges' subjective assessments, be changed to make it fairer for competitors?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Not so sharp or witty as it needs to be, STICK IT features appealing performers and a too-little-too-late rousing finale. Revisiting themes better served by Bring It On, the movie follows Haley (Missy Peregrym), introduced as she crashes her bike through a house window, whereupon she's arrested. Her voice-over reveals that Haley is thoughtful and angry: Her parents' divorce has been difficult, and she's doing her best to forget her own past involvement in elite gymnastics.
The onetime floor exercise star earned the enmity of her fellow competitors and coaches when she walked away from "the Worlds" two years earlier, and now, just when she thought she was out... they pull her back in! Specifically, the judge (Polly Holliday) sentences Haley to train with a disgraced coach, Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges). This arrangement leads where you know it will, as both student and coach learn to appreciate one another's stubbornness, while also bringing out each other's morality and compassion.
While it's a good thing that Haley is now free of her at-wits-end dad, she now must decide whether to participate in a sport she sees as corrupt, in that it relies on petty tensions among competitors and archaic regulations prohibiting creativity. She does, of course, but along the way helps her eager-neurotic, easily typed teammates (including snooty-girl Vanessa Lengies, perky-girl Nikki SooHoo, and clueless-girl Maddy Curley).
The movie sets up a familiar tension between rebellion and conformity, with Haley's t-shirts (Ramones, Bad Brains, Motorhead) proclaiming her punk-rockness and the film proclaiming its own DIY attitude with opening credits written in taggers'-script and a soundtrack featuring pop-punkers Blink 182 and Green Day. On the other side sits the gymnastics establishment, notoriously old-school, restrictive, and even dangerous (in its emphasis on teeny bodies and training that begins when girls are five and six).
Though Haley's efforts to "throw her best tricks as hard as she can" are engaging, the movie places all kinds of obstacles in her way, not least being awkward plotting, unnecessary add-ons (her two bike-riding friends, played by Kellan Lutz and John Patrick Amedori, mostly provide fart jokes), and some inexplicable editing. That said, the girls' flips and vaults are often dazzling, as are the film's superbright look and a couple of overlap-editing sequences, showing the routine of training as well as the hard work involved. But Jessica Bendinger's movie takes too long to get to the showdown/point (which is then over-explained by the TV announcers at the big meet) and makes poor use of the ever-cool Bridges.
Families who enjoy this movie will also like the more fun Bring It On or But I'm a Cheerleader.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentSome shots of gymnast's mother's cleavage; close-ups of gymnasts' bottoms; discussion of a coach's affair with Haley's mother; mention of "boobs" (as in, what the gymnasts don't have); girls show bra straps at a competition to challenge rule that they can't; team member develops crush on a boy (chaste flirtation); boys wear gowns at department store during "at-the-mall" montage. |
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ViolenceFilm starts with bike/rider crashing through window, then picked up by cops for vandalism; some gymnastics tricks lead to falls and injuries (a couple of these treated as comedy). |
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LanguageReferences to (and acts of) farting; a couple of s-words and other minor curses; assorted colorful phrases and malapropisms. |
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Social BehaviorCompetition drives adults to behave unfairly; coaches cheat clients for money; coaches sleep with parents; judges adhere to archaic rules; girls are cruel to one another; and in the end, girls teach adults lessons in creativity and working together. |
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CommercialismProduct names on display at competitions include Motorola, Yahoo, Luna, Energizer, Neutrogena, Nexcare; t-shirts feature brand names (Orange Crush) and band names (Bad Brains, Motorhead, Black Flag, etc.). |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrunk coaches and judges at a post-competition party, drinks ordered at the bar. |
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