Les Runaways

"You hear that? That's the sound of hormones raging."

The Runaways is at the opposite end of the spectrum from most recent music biopics. Where movies like Ray and Walk the Line aim for emotional resonance and creating a connection between an iconic figure and the audience, The Runaways is about style, dramatics, and looking good. Which is pretty in line with what the band was about. The sobriety of those movies I previously mentioned wouldn't have worked for such a hyper- kinetic story as this one. Sure, the movie slows down a bit when the crash and burn sets in, but the focus on style, sound and imagery is never really replaced by anything else. And I mean that as a compliment. 

Michael Shannon didn't really work for me as Kim Fowley, but the movie wasn't really about him, anyway. The five girls playing the group seemed to have an inappropriate amount of fun with their roles, and who wouldn't? You can't help but be impressed by their performances, they play and act like a real band. But no doubt about it, this is Kristin Stewart's (Joan Jett) and and Dakota Fanning's (Cherie Currie) show. They don't let you forget it. Not many actresses their age would have the talent and the balls to take something like this on. They do it, and do it right. I left the movie with a healthy amount of respect for both of them.     

The entire movie plays out like a music video about all the things you would be mortified of seeing your teenage daughter doing, but of course, would make her cool to do. Which makes sense, as the director (Floria Sigismondi) is best known for directing music videos. The cinematography gleefully sells the same excess, ego, and intoxication that the Runaways' image did. All the band's songs that are woven throughout the movie keep it moving at a super-charged pace. 

You have to tailor the tone of a film to its subject matter, in order for it to be successful. The Runaways is the true(ish), female version of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and I couldn't help but really enjoy every bawdy and inappropriate minute of it. Get in a Runaways frame of mind, or don't even bother with this one.

Greetings again from the darkness. Getting dragged back to the mid-70's can be quite fun, especially when the topic is rock 'n roll. Based on lead singer Cherie Currie's autobiography, this film provides an overview of the formation, sudden fame, and equally sudden dismantling of the first all-girl's rock band, The Runaways.

Joan Jett was the heart of the band, but it took oddball music producer Kim Fowley to put the band together and get the recording deal. Fowley may be the most interesting character in this story. Here he is played with force by the very talented Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road).

Instead, the story focuses on Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, mostly Currie, since it is her book! Dakota Fanning plays Cherie Currie as a confused 15 year old with a messed up family life. The family includes a mom, played by Tatum O'Neal, who announces she is getting married and moving to Indonesia. Currie's dad is a very sick alcoholic, so she is an easy recruit for Fowley and Jett. Jett is played balls-out by Kristen Stewart. Yes, Kristen Stewart from Twilight. Here she shows much more of the talent we saw prior to the Twilight series. She captures the fire and spirit of Joan Jett and leaves little doubt she will pursue her dreams despite all obstacles.

Overall, the script comes up short and provides us little more than headlines and a quick glimpse. Would have expected much more on talented guitarist Lita Ford, who continues to work today. For a quick intro to the story of The Runaways, this one is fine. Just don't expect much depth.

On occasion, the atmosphere of watching a movie at a theater in a certain circumstance adds to the ambiance. Case in point, The Runaways: I saw it at my local cineplex, where, unbeknownst to me since I last ventured into a particular screen, the one where The Runaways played on (good old theater 8), the sound had gotten a little worse. It was crackly, though one could still hear voices and sound fx and music reasonably well, and on the side of the frames of the 2:35:1 aspect ratio, there was some black fizzle or something. For a more prestige picture or big blockbuster, it might have been a hindrance. For the case of The Runaways, it was just about perfect. This mid-1970's trip through a kick-you-in-the-ball girl rock group complimented the flaws in the stereo-sound and the picture, and it was like listening/watching a worn vinyl LP. This coupled with the attitude of the performances, and some of the songs featured, made it like a near Grindhouse event.

That the movie itself is less than great was to be expected. This is one of those rise-fall rock and roll band stories, one you know well if you've seen at least two or three by now (pick your delicious poison, be it The Doors or even Dreamgirls - 'The Fabulous Stains' from the early 80's wouldn't be far off either). And it also has a distinction of being a rise-fall story for a band that was around for only a few years, a less-than-revolutionary girl version of The Sex Pistols, who all wanted to rock but came from different backgrounds and were beat down before they could fully develop rock star egos by a grubby manager/producer.

For the Runaways, we mostly get the stories of Cheri Currie (Dakota Fanning) and Joan Jett (Kirsten Steward). Many will know the latter, since she's made several big hit rock singles, but some in the audience (unless you're already a big Runaway fan or fan of the movie Foxes) won't know who Cheri Currie was. Perhaps that was the appeal for the director, first-timer Flori Sigismondi, that we get a view into the lead singer and how she's actually got a family and a place she's coming from, as opposed to Joan Jett who (by the appearance from the film) just came off the streets and immediately had to play guitar or die or go to prison. Certainly that, too, has a bit of the cliché to it (un-attentive mother, alcoholic father, same old same old), but the filmmaker is able to straddle the line between Currie, Jett and producer Kim Fowley (unmistakably hammy Michael Shannon, maybe too hammy in some scenes).

Here's the thing that works for the film though: as a real gritty rock movie, as a saga of characters rolling around LA (sometimes right under the Hollywood sign), getting wasted, trashing hotel rooms, getting into madness, being rockers who can stand up to those "men" that Fowley says don't want to see girls on stage. Subsequently in the story in the film, he exploits them for all he can, usually when they aren't noticing until it really affects their appearance as rock and rollers as opposed to beauty queens (or, of course, Currie as one). Again, some of these story elements are familiar, but this is not what makes the film so appealing - I didn't go to the Runaways to get a super-insightful script, save for a few little nuggets (i.e. they trained in a trailer!).

I went to the Runaways to see rock and roll and rock as it blasted away without care back in the 1970's, albeit shown here as a brew of glam (Bowie) and punk (Pistols) and eventually with Jett and the Blackhearts as a straight up rock and roll band, and that's what I got. I was heavily impressed by the performances of Fanning- who can be legitimately sexy and make it both right for her character and uncomfortable for an audience member to see it in the flesh (and boy it is fleshy!)- and Stewart, who flexes her chops while on leave from the Twilight camp. As mentioned, Shannon is a little too over the top, as he was in Revolutionary Road, but that in and of itself is kind of a marvel, as he isn't taking it seriously, but still has a good time. And the music... ah, for the right fan at the right time, it's blissful to hear and the be blown away by even a movie version of The Runaways, who make one want to rush out and buy any song they recorded. Who knew a revealing, raw-cum-conventional bio-pic would be their best advertisement in years?

THE RUNAWAYS chronicles the run of one of the most successful all-girl rock bands of all time. The film is based on "Neon Angel", the autobiography of the band's original lead singer Cherie Currie, and it gives us a glimpse into the world of rock and roll as seen from the perspective of a group of teenage girls on their way to super-stardom. I had heard some good things about the film when it was first making the festival circuit, but I wasn't as impressed when I finally got a chance to see it myself. The cast did an amazing job in their roles but the film wasn't as great as it probably could have been.

The problem with music biopics, particularly for rock stars, is that most rock stars seem to encounter the same problems: sex, drugs, booze, addiction, conflicting personalities, etc. So we get a lot of repetition with each rock star film and RUNAWAYS is no different. Cherie's decline into addiction, the in-band conflicts, the initial excitement of success and the eventual succumbing to the stress and strain of maintaining the lifestyle. It's nothing we haven't seen before in other films, it's just happening to younger characters. It's fine though because the performances are strong enough that it's easy to forget that the material's nothing new. My main problem with the film was that it came across as unstructured. It felt as if the filmmakers had just strung along random interesting events in the Runaways history and it made it feel like the movie was just wandering along. As a result, the movie loses it's momentum after their first major gig and drags through the last half. It begins around the time Cherie begins to lose control which is a shame; I should be concerned for her character, not bored by the meandering storyline.

The film's saving grace is the cast. Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Michael Shannon did an amazing job. Kristen Stewart has earned some major credibility with me thanks to this film. I was concerned that a girl famous for her role in the TWILIGHT saga would ruin such an iconic role (Joan Jett) but she did a fantastic job and seemed to embody her perfectly. Dakota Fanning is Cherie and I've always thought of Fanning as one of the most talented young stars in Hollywood. She provides an innocence in Cherie's character at the start that makes the film interesting to watch when her stardom warps and destroys it. Shannon is the group's manager Kim Fowley. Fowley is apparently infamous for his aggressive style, and his training sessions with the Runaways are the best parts of the film.

You can't have a music film without the music that inspired it and the soundtrack to the film is awesome. It's loaded with music from the Runaways and Joan's later solo run. The filmmaker's transport you back to the late 70s with their dedication to the style, from the clothes to the music and the fads. The movie has all the ingredients to make a great bio movie, but the execution prevents it from rising to what it could've been.

The story (or legend) of the Runaways is fertile ground for screenwriters and filmmakers. It has all the requisite elements that a good, wild, invigorating drama needs -- LA in the late 70's, some of the sleaziest characters the music industry can conjure up, the "boy band" prototype (in this case, "girl band") taking a new tack and opening up new musical territory, disaffected and angry teen girls from the Valley trying to make their mark in the world, young starry-eyed teens gaining a flittering slice of fame and living the alluring rock and roll life.

This film, unfortunately, follows a self-indulgent, ponderous, "explorative" path that focuses less on the invigorating pace and action of the creative, high energy world of rock and roll in the late 70s, and more (far, far more) on the feelings, conflicts, attitudes and sentiments of the principal characters. It doesn't work. In fact, it fails quite badly.

It's a slow, dull, tedious film that reeks of amateur, quasi-artistic production tones. A character tone piece is a tricky thing to tackle as a director and/or writer. It requires astute artistic instinct and sensibility, the ability to develop and promote scene and setting as principal (and interesting) elements that guide the film, mainly the characters, through the expository journey.

This production failed, and what we get are a bunch of miscast young actors forced to overact and drag out both passive and active dramatic elements, ad nauseum. Again, it's tedious and amateurish, and it completely misses the artistic mark, which is to convey the look, feel, excitement and angst of the music industry in that era.

I couldn't wait for the film to finally, mercifully end.