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Mutiny on the Vault: Nearly 20 years ago, 'Stick It' raged against the judges of women’s gymnastics. Its writer and director remembers how Disney almost sabotaged her film

Nearly 20 years ago, Stick It raged against the judges of women’s gymnastics. Its writer and director remembers how Disney almost sabotaged her film.

Written and directed by Jessica Bendinger six years after writing anotherseminalathletics film, Bring It On, Stick It revs things up as we find Texas teenager Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym) returning, against her will, to the world of elite women’s gymnastics as a court-ordered punishment following an arrest. But coach Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges) is willing to take Haley in at his academy, and over the course of the film’s first half she gradually learns to re-love and recommit to a sport that didn’t necessarily love her back. While this scenario has never transcended reality for the sport, Bendinger, a former gymnast herself, advocated for the ending when she realized it presented a more cogent villain — even if several film executives had difficulty seeing her vision.

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