THE RUNAWAYS
Written & Directed by Floria Sigismondi, based on the book Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story by Cherie Currie
Produced by John Linson, Art Linson & Bill Pohlad
Released by Apparition
USA. 105 min. Not Rated
With Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Stella Maeve, Scout Taylor-Compton, Alia Shawkat, Riley Keough, Johnny Lewis & Tatum O’Neal
 

The Runaways opens with as bold a statement as it can muster: blood from Cherie Currie’s first period dripping onto a carpet. The implicit message is clear. If a little feminine blood’s too much for you, you’re in the wrong theater. It’s every bit as brash as an opening power chord, and it’s shortly followed by a moment that’s almost as iconic: Joan Jett buying her first leather jacket with a bag of collected change. These girls are getting ready for something.

That something turns out to be an all-girl rock band, guided by the punkish Jett (Kristen Stewart), fronted by the 16-year-old Currie (Dakota Fanning), and aimed straight at the hormones of ’70s America. All the familiar rock star tropes are here—the drugs, the broken homes, the obnoxious manager—but with underage girls at the helm (and cock-rockers taunting them from the sidelines), it feels like the first time it’s ever been done.

Stewart’s Jett is spectacular, all casual stumbles and subdued aggression. If she were playing a heroic chemist instead of a sullen rock star, she would be getting in line for awards. There’s a lurking hostility completely absent from her previous work, and when she finally does cut loose—lashing out at the band’s pompous manager, played by Michael Shannon—it’s something to behold. I think I could watch them scream at each other for a solid 20 minutes.

Of course, it helps that Michael Shannon has tapped into a kind of manic energy usually reserved for Herzog movies. One particularly spectacular moment is when he directs the still-naifish Fanning to sing a song “like your sister just fucked your boyfriend in your parent’s bed.” He knows he’s in a movie about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I wish I could say the same for Fanning, who seems stuck in an afterschool special.

Otherwise, director Floria Sigismondi faithfully recreates the mix of exploitation and empowerment that fueled the Runaways. That means band-on-the-run shots mixed with uncomfortably leering interludes and sapphic titillations that feel out of place. Unfortunately for the empowerment angle, the movie wastes its energy on Currie without really knowing what to do with Jett. Unlike Currie, she knows when she’s had too much blow, and doesn’t seem phased by the hallucinatory hustle of life in a touring rock band. What do you do with a damsel who’s not in distress? Russell Brandom
March 19, 2010