The Runaways

Kristin Stewart stars as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning stars as Cherie Currie in the story of the short lived hit teenage all girl band of the 70's called The Runaways.  The band came out of nowhere at a time when rock music was ruled by men.  Their rise to fame was unexpected and the film tells the story of the ups and downs that come along with that sudden popularity and living the rock star lifestyle.

• Loved it!!!  Kristin Steward and Dakota Fanning are a dynamic duo in this movie if I ever saw one.  They are both so captivating in their performances. 
• Fanning is so amazing I can't even put it into words.  Wasn't it just yesterday that she was a little girl on "I am Sam"?  Now she is all grown up and doing her first on screen kisses-one of them with a girl!  She has this amazing ability to really take on a character and make you believe it.  Fanning was gone and in her place I saw Cherie Currie-the rock star-and nothing else.
• Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) was obnoxious and ridiculous beyond belief.  Shannon did an excellent job playing this neurotic over the top character.
• I find it pretty amazing that this band was so young.  Currie was only 15 when the band got put together.  It seems like a more common trend now that superstars are barely teenagers but that wasn't the case so much back in the 70's.
• Another story about the pitfalls of super stardom but it was gritty, interesting and so well done that nothing about it felt like just another story.

Just Me

At the height of their fame in the mid-Seventies, all-girl glam-punk band The Runaways provided an antidote to everything the mainstream music industry represented. They were loud, chaotic, uninhibited, and brimming with attitude.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for this misguided biopic. In the hands of veteran music video director Floria Sigismondi, The Runaways are turned into just another slick made-for-MTV machine - looking very cool in their slow-motion close-ups, but shallow and one-dimensional once they open their mouths.

When the music's over, all that's left is a hollow tale of teen rebellion.

Thanks to a pair of mature performances by Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart The Runaways isn't quite as dull as it might have been, but it certainly flirts with mediocrity. The narrative is cliched and jumps around erratically, some scenes seem to have been included purely because they look kinda cool - even the music itself doesn't really stand up to the scrutiny. It's not a good sign that the strongest songs on the soundtrack are by The Stooges and David Bowie.

Anyone who's familiar with Cherie Currie's book Neon Angel: A Memoir of A Runaway will already know the story, and even those of you who have never heard of The Runaways will be able to guess most of its constituent parts.

A group of girls are brought together by eccentric music producer Kim Fowley (Revolutionary Road's Michael Shannon) to form a hot, sexy all-female rock band. They struggle with prejudice on the tour circuit, get laid a lot, and finally get hooked on drugs. Eventually the band implodes thanks to their raging hormones and excessive drug use. It's hardly Shakespearian in its scope.

This might have been forgiven if the music was powerful enough - after all, Oliver Stone got away with it in The Doors - but The Runaways only truly had a couple of memorable tunes, neither of which have aged that well. It's a relief when Joan Jett's solo single 'I Love Rock'n'Roll' finally blasts from the speakers in the closing minutes.

Even their pre-Spice Girls take on Girl Power is dumbed down and trivialized, as our addicted heroines use their sexual liberation to tackle such weighty problems as whether they should sleep with each other or with their roadie. The fact that they have inspirational thug Fowley behind the scenes pulling all their strings just serves to undermine any feminist message that may have surfaced.

It's only Fanning and Stewart that bring any kind of depth or focus to the story, and even they have to battle against the constant stream of overedited concert scenes and pointless excess (Jett fills a water pistol with alcohol, Jett pisses on a rival's guitar, Jett goes on an eight-month binge...). If it wasn't for Fanning's out-of-her-depth rebel Cherie Currie The Runaways might have slumped into even more aimless debauchery. As it is, it turns a short-lived and underachieving teen band into the hollow poster-girls for punk rebellion. The Sex Pistols must be wondering why they bothered.

2/5

Sex, drugs and rock and roll…The Runaways is all this and much more.

The Runaways, written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, is the story of 70’s all-girl rock group, The Runaways. Based in part on lead singer Cherie Currie’s book, “Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway,” The Runaways shows in dramatic fashion the highs and lows of fame…both literally and figuratively.

The Runaways is well-served from fabulous acting by Kristin Stewart and Dakota Fanning as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie respectively. Stewart makes you forget about her Twilight career. She displays the grit and determination of Runaways’ founder Jett, and boy, can she sing. She is absolutely fantastic. The real revelation, however, is Fanning. She is amazing in every conceivable way. This is her introduction to Hollywood as an adult actress and Fanning delivers big time. She has the voice and the moves to compete with any rocker of any era. Her portrayal of Currie’s journey from wide-eye innocent to uninhibited, drug-toking, hardened performer is shockingly great. Fanning has the acting chops that prove she’ll have a successful career for as long as she wants. Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley, the band's manager and producer, seems more caricature than real person. But he does convey how hard it was for an all female rock group to be taken seriously.

The Runaways is better than most biopics. It makes you long for a sequel…how Jett moved on from the Runaways to The Blackhearts.  But in the meantime, just be thankful we have The Runaways for terrific performances from some unexpected places and for some of the best rock and roll music heard in a movie in a long time.

Last updated: 2010-04-20 17:10:54 by jfuchsman

A true  story, an indie film, chicks that rock, sex, drugs, and rock and  roll.  I couldn't wait. 

     "The Runaways" is the  true story of one of Rock's first all  female bands, The Runaways.   Based on the memoir by former band member Cherie Currie, the film  chronicles the rise and fall of The  Runaways, focusing on two of its founding members, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.  The story is one  very familiar to Rock, a meteoric  rise followed by a drug induced crash back to reality, but it's told in a  way that's empowering without preaching and captures the intoxicating  excitement of being a rock star.

     I thoroughly  enjoyed "The Runaways."  Kristen Stewart is  amazing as Joan Jett and  she shows that she can play something more than just twilight style  teen angst.  (This was the 70's.  No teen angst.  You just got pissed  and rebelled!)  Even more stunning is Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.  Fanning is  absolutely brilliant as she sheds her child star mantel and takes her  rightful place in the adult acting world, despite the fact that both  she, and her character, are under-aged.  Rounding out the cast is Michael Shannon, who  plays the band's promoter and manager, the insanely manic Kim Fowley.  Shannon absolutely  nails the self centered narcissism, and possible genius, of Fowley.   Plus there's plenty of sex,  drugs, and rock and roll.  (Did I mention that already?)

     Missing from this adaptation are some of the darker aspects of Joan Jett's and Cherie Currie's early lives.   There is no real mention of rape or abuse.  The worst we see is the  effects of  the Currie's parent's divorce and Currie's father's  crippling alcoholism.  This movie is dark enough without them and would  likely be in danger of becoming a made for Lifetime movie if it delved any  deeper into Jett and Currie's troubled pasts.

     "The Runaways" balances the extreme  ecstasy of Rock stardom with the harsh realities of fame while telling  the bitter, true story of a group of girls who made rock history.  Watch  it for the sex and drugs and love it for the rock and roll!

Brian
Ciné Critique Américain

The Runaways had initially been marketed as Joan Jett's biopic.  But as the title tells you, it's really just about the group she was in before becoming a big star.  Plus, she wasn't even the lead singer of The Runaways.  The singer was Cherie Currie; Joan Jett was the lead guitarist who sometimes sang vocals.  So the focus of the movie really is on Cherie.  She's played by Dakota Fanning.  That's a pretty young actor to play the role of a rock singer right?  Well, all of the members of the band were age 16 or younger when they recorded their first album.
The movie basically shows how the group came to be and then follows with the eventual downfall of the band.  It is Currie, specifically, who has the downfall as she clearly lets fame go to her head.  I had never even heard of The Runaways so I don't know if they really got that famous outside the underground scene but the movie does show that they were big in Japan for some reason.  They did have one single called "Cherry Bomb" which got some attention in the U.S.
Most people know Joan Jett from her later work as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.  I think a film that focused in more on her real success that came later would have been much more appealing.  It seems though that The Runaways were one of the first all girl rock bands.  That and the fact that they were so young justifies the reasoning for making a movie about them.  Dakota Fanning is okay as Cherie Currie but it's Kristen Stewart who really nails the role of Joan Jett.  She's spot on acting and singing like her.  Unfortunately, we get no backstory to her as the film stays focused on Currie.  Also stealing the show is actor Michael Shannon as their manager, Kim Fowley.  He is the one that puts the group together.  Shannon was nominated for an Oscar last year as a mental patient in Revolutionary Road and plays possibly an even crazier character here.
The movie could have been better but the story is interesting enough that many people will like it.  However, I'm very surprised at how sexed-up they have Dakota Fanning looking in some of the scenes considering she was 15 at the time of filming this.  But I guess that's to stay true to the real story.  Fanning did make a movie a few years ago in which she was raped so this would be no more controversial than that was.

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-philadelphia/danny-porcaro