The Story
The Runaways tells the true story of the 70’s female rock band and most notably the relationship between Joan Jett and lead singer Cherie Currie.
Thrown together by music producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), guitarist Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) start a band that will eventually be wildly successful, especially after they discover their lead singer; the talented, 15 year old Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning).
Characters
Most people would recognize Kristen Stewart from the teeny-bopper vampire series, Twilight. Fortunately, she has more respectable credits to her name and one of those is playing legendary rocker, Joan Jett, in this musical biopic.
At first, I was unimpressed by her presence but by the time the credits rolled I had a newfound respect for Kristen Stewart because she demonstrated a versatility that I didn’t think was possible. Joan Jett is a girl on the brink of feminist society, a time when girls belonged in the kitchen and were expected to do nothing more than raise children and keep the family home clean. Stewart brought a tough and determined quality to the role which I feel rings true of women in that era. They would have to be tough to break through the mold set out for them. It certainly helps her case that she didn’t run her fingers through or flip her hair even once!
As usual, Dakota Fanning gives an outstanding performance as 15 year old lead singer, Cherie Currie. Cherie comes from a pretty dysfunctional background, living at first with her mother, who practices the parental art of non-interference and then her alcoholic father. The only constant in her life is her sister, Marie, with whom she shares everything including, eventually, the spotlight. Cherie jumps at the chance to live a different life and hang out with a bunch of girls who just want to have fun and play rock music. She is anxious to get away from the family home and all of its incumbent responsibilities only to discover a new side of herself. Cherie gets caught up in the whirlwind lifestyle of the rich and famous, even though they are not that rich and not at all famous yet; she starts to throw her inhibitions to the wind, giving in to the pressures of sex, drugs and rock and roll on the road. Dakota Fanning lends an innocence to the portrayal of Cherie Currie which really shines through and helps the viewer understand how very young the girls were when they started out and how difficult it must have been for them to remain strong and withstand peer pressures.
Honorable mention goes to Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) as Lita Ford, while the story didn’t focus on her, I feel she is worthwhile to mention. I don’t understand why she had such a small part in the movie considering she is substantially more famous than Cherie Currie. Personally, I watched the movie so that I could see some back story on both Jett and Ford. I was disappointed at how very little insight was given into the beginnings of young Lita Ford.
Final Head Count
I was left with the aftertaste of two very big disappointments when this movie was over. The first was that it seemed like a very standard tell-all. Girls join band, girls sleep around and take drugs, the end. This movie didn’t bring anything new to the fore and almost seemed pointless to make. I was very disappointed because I love heavy metal and females in the music industry would be nothing without the forerunners of rock, Joan Jett and Lita Ford. I wanted this movie to be uplifting and tell an amazing story but all I was left with was the image of a “girl band” being thrown together by Kim Fowley, much in the same way that the Sex Pistols were formed in England by their producer and much in the same way boy bands like Backstreet Boys etc. are thrown together by music industry bigwigs and then marketed just right in order to sell. It’s a very big drag to see that the history of girls in rock is nothing more than a fabrication, if that’s not the case then this movie needs to get buried or remade because that is the message it sends. I don’t think that when Cherie Currie wrote the script or when Joan Jett set out to produce this biopic they meant to give themselves such a terrible image, so it is sad to see that is what they ended up with. I was also very disappointed that they played Cherry Bomb so many times! The Runaways had a lot of great songs, and they had ample opportunity to showcase their talent here, instead they showcased (again!) their producer doing things for them, inventing them and marketing their sex appeal instead of their breakthrough image as an all female rock group. Perhaps they just didn’t have as much talent as we were led to believe.
In the end, I would not recommend this movie simply because I think very highly of Joan Jett and what she and Lita, Sandy West and Cherie tried to do. I just don’t think it was properly portrayed in this movie. I think that The Runaways deserve a much bigger and better story-telling than this biopic provided. There was an excellent cast, none of whom I would trade in and in the end I would just opt for a better script.
