I can only imagine that first-time feature film directing is no simple feat — and if, like Drew Barrymore, you’re trying out the director’s chair for the first time while simultaneously holding down the fort in front of the camera, well then there’s no doubt you’ve got a whole extra set of challenges.

So all the more points to Barrymore in my book for Whip It—not only an admirable directorial debut, but also just a plain old good movie, chock full of likeable, relatable characters and plenty of good clean fun.

Still, there’s something lovably, charmingly absurd about the film’s solution to Barrymore’s need to be simultaneously in front of and behind the camera — that is to say, the way the slight absentmindedness of her character, airhead roller derby fanatic Smashley Simpson, conveniently keeps Barrymore offscreen whenever possible (Smashley has a habit of rolling up late in scenes featuring the team in its entirety, giggling breathlessly, “Sorry I’m late!” or else running off early at team get-togethers for a bit of roughhousing with her fiancé).

But, as with everything else in Whip It, you’ll find yourself having too much fun to worry about it unduly. Little quirks and inconsistencies like these make the movie all the more endearing. Set in that funny kind of faux-past so trendy among the indie-flick likes of Napoleon Dynamite and Juno, Whip It’s universe is one where, for the convenience of certain plot points, no one has a cell phone to track each other down at a crowded roller derby, yet Google image search is always an option for keeping tabs on someone.

Somewhere in the midst of this difficult-to-pinpoint half-past/half-present, seventeen-year-old Bliss Cavendish (Ellen Page) is biding her time in small-town Texas—going to school, working at the local diner with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat), and quietly putting up with the beauty pageants her well-meaning mother (Marcia Gay Harden) forces on her. Then, on a whim, she sneaks out one night with Pash to a women’s roller derby competition in Austin, and, smitten with the sport, ends up lacing up her old roller skates, lying about her age, and joining the team.

Certainly the plot has its formulaic moments — girl finds her true calling but hides it from her family, meets charming if imperfect dream guy but alienates her best friend, must learn to reconcile new existence with old. Still, what Whip Itlacks in originality of plot is negligible compared to what it does have: a delightful cast of brave, flawed, lovable characters, who make wonderfully (and, when need be, painfully) real what might otherwise be a fairly ordinary coming-of-age story.

The Cavendish parents (Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern) will doubtless make you look at your own parents in a new light, and from personal experience I can predict with great certainty the grin that will break out on your face when Alia Shawkat’s Pash beams from the stands, “That’s my best friend!” From Kristen Wiig as the surprisingly maternal tough roller-girl who draws Bliss into the fold, to never-to-be-underrated Ellen Page, who pulls off her role as Bliss with her usual charm, Whip It has the unusual distinction for a movie of its genre of leaving no character under-explored.

This charming story of growing up has more depth than perhaps its previews have let on. Underneath the feel-good indie vibe, to say nothing of the inherent fun of watching the likes of Barrymore, Page, Wiig and more strap on their skates, lies a sweet story of growing up, and a story that cuts no corners in plumbing the depths of its characters, who have a lot more to them than is readily apparent.