This little movie, sadly, is not ticking it; it is much too cute for that. The cuteness seems but unavoidable in this new inbreed in the yet unexplored and unpatrolled border territory between mechanically inspiring sports flicks and the teen chick flicks. Debutant director Jessica Bendinger might be setting out to do a movie about rebellion in the uptight and hypocritical world of female gymnastics, but despite good intentions, the feel-good factor kicks in well before the requisite big sporting event where moral victories are claimed in the fade out to the end credits and the formulaic uplifting song that always goes with them.

In its eventual form, the movie seems like the result of a mix up where a television script ended up in the theatrical department by accident and was duly processed by the studio machine. There is little reason for it to grace the big screen, bar testing the potential of young Missy Peregrym in the lead. As such it succeeds, the potential is there, but it will be better shown and better served elsewhere.

Said Missy Peregrym plays Haley Graham, a talented gymnast who is enamoured with teenage rebellion to the point of walking out on the team in the World Championship and progressing to full-fledged run-ins with the law. The court orders her back into the world of gymnastics via the training school of famed Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges), who whips robotised diminutive champions out of obedient girls. The unruly attitude is there to wake the other girls out of their torpor in the tried and tested formula One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Young Haley is influencing teammates and summons rightful sympathy among audience members, yet she, too, will have to mend her ways and grow as a person, the film insists. In doing so it oversteps the cuteness barrier and it becomes clear it is trying a bit too hard. The climatic sports sequence lacks grace and a pinch of much-needed self irony. Its loud championing of integrity over judges marks is about as appropriate and pleasing as Tim Henman pumping his fists after winning a point.

Missy Peregrym is asked to carry the film, which she more or less does, despite director Bendinger's allowing her to use needless mannerisms left, right and centre, or wasting her as a voice-over reader during the screenplay's flat patches. As already mentioned above, Peregrym demonstrates the potential to move on to bigger and better things as she is head and shoulders above a largely wooden teenage cast. Which lead us to Jeff Bridges. If he ever felt exasperated with his costars it hardly shows, which is no small feat. He is a bit overqualified for a movie of this calibre, but he tackles the part with grace and dare I say dignity. He is arguably the only point of interest for audiences, outside the pool of girls keen on female empowerment; and the odd 30-plus year-old wandering into the cinema will have someone to relate to, yet this is not sufficient ground for a recommendation. This is passable entertainment for and about teenagers.