Joan Jett (Twilight's Kristen Stewart) was not a regular teenager. No matter, she had a guitar and a love of rock and roll that was second only to Suzie Quatro. Across town, Cherrie Currie (Dakota Fanning) was in love with David Bowie and when her parents finally abandon their family instincts, Joan's new band is the crutch she's looking for. So begins first-time Canadian helmer Floria Sigismondi's energised biopic about their 1970's all girl punk band, The Runaways.
Based on Currie's memoir, it's a not unfamiliar story of kids (Currie was 15 when she joined the band) who have enough ignorance to think they can make it, and enough passion to get there. Anchored to the relationship between Jett and Currie, The Runaways charts their dramatic rise and equally sudden fall, one that starts with Kim Fowley. As The Runaway's oh-so-flamboyant creator/producer/mentor, Oscar winner Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) steals every scene he's in. Think the love child of Ziggy Stardust and Malcolm McLaren. In point of fact, Shannon's so good he almost destabilises the film by amplifying how little chemistry Stewart and Fanning manage to create for themselves. For balls-out rock gods, these mopey, desultory performances garner little excitement. Granted it suits Currie once she takes a downhill ride on the drug roller-coaster to bottom out as a retail chick. But before then, the electricity that made their relationship one of the most exciting in underground music is all but absent.
There's a lingering sense that the film has gone with the wrong girl. Jett was the artistic, riotous soul of the band – exemplified when she urinates on a guitar - yet shares equal time with the siren who remains something of an implant. Despite this, Sigismondi creates enough excitement to see us through. In doing so she captures the essence of burning, teenage desire to simply be what they want to be, do what they want to do. For Currie that was performance, an ego driven desire that ruined the band and almost ruined her life. For Jett it was creating music, a talent that would eventually propel her to international stardom. She loved rock and roll, and The Runaways goes most of the way to telling us how much.
// COLIN FRASER
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