Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is a misfit in her small town, Bodeen, in Texas and has no idea where her life is going. She allows her mother to push her into winning beauty pageant after beauty pageant, despite having no interest in it herself. She and her friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) dream of escaping their small town, with Pash planning to go to an Ivy League School in a big city and Bliss hoping to find something that will help her figure out where she belongs. During a shopping trip to Austin she finds it — roller derby. She and Pash secretly go to the Roller Derby event in Austin under the pretense of going to a football game. Bliss only wishes to tell the Hurl Scouts that they are "her new heroes" and is suddenly thrown into the idea of being in Roller Derby herself when Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig) replies "Well, put some skates on and be your own hero". She practices roller skating until she's ready for trials. She's able to go to the trials in Austin under the premise of taking SAT preparation classes and ends up impressing Razor, the coach, landing herself a place in the team. After realizing she needs to be ruthless in Roller Derby she realizes she also needs to take charge in other aspects of her life and her parents and old friends are eventually able to accept that Roller Derby is where she belongs, even if only for "the moment".