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Admittedly, I’m a fan of both Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, so I was more than a little excited to see what director Floria Sigismondi was able to put together with the biopic film THE RUNAWAYS – which is based on Cherie Currie’s autobiography.  The film follows (primarily) the lives of Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), two young women (teenagers actually) who end up pursuing a musical career at the hands of eccentric but proven producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon).  Currie was the youngest of Fowley’s all-girl experimental rock band, “The Runaways”, who skyrocketed to success in record time, and became popular around the world.  Jett and Currie even experienced a somewhat romantic relationship for a while, but Currie’s family back home was becoming lost without their little girl around.  Despite the band’s popularity, Cherie soon found herself falling into all the traps of the 1970’s music superstar lifestyle.  Her addictions to drugs, sex, and other forms of excess would eventually lead to the downfall of her career, and the band itself.  And before you go accusing me of “spoiling” the movie, this has all been pretty well-documented over time, and there’s no real surprises in the film.

THE RUNAWAYS excels in a few areas in particular, first and foremost with the performances of Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.  Both actresses practically transform themselves into these women they’re playing, transcending their known talent, and moving into areas usually only Oscar-winners can dare touch.  Stewart embodies Joan Jett, both in look and in every minute mannerism.  Fans of THE TWILIGHT SAGA can forget about the defenseless “Bella” they’re used to seeing, as Kristen’s “Joan” is the kind of woman you become transfixed with, and don’t want to take your eyes off of… yet know better than to mess with too.  She is quite simply excellent with her execution.  And let’s not leave out Dakota Fanning, who has grown up a lot with this role, leaving behind the screaming daughter in the back seat we remember from Steven Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS.  Fanning goes to some dark and convincing places as Cherie Currie, showing us the dangers of a young woman trying to grow up too fast, and the effects a mature industry can take on a susceptible mind.  Watching Dakota Fanning take this downward spiral as a character is both impressive from an acting standpoint, and highly disturbing knowing where we’re used to seeing with her as an actress.  But there’s no denying the overall impact.  Both ladies perform their singing (and in Stewart’s case guitar) themselves on screen.  The performance of the song “Cherry Bomb” is all them, and it’s eerily similar to the original.

I would be remiss not to point out the greatness that is Michael Shannon, who boldly takes on the role of Kim Fowley, which in the hands of the wrong man could have easily come off as a cartoonish characterization.  But Shannon knows how to chew scenery without losing respectability.  His performance is mesmerizing in its extremes, and in many ways is the glue that holds this story together (much like I imagine the real Fowley was the glue holding together the band).  Tatum O’Neal shows up only briefly as Currie’s mother, but doesn’t have much to do other than play the overly-prim and proper head of the family, and perhaps the very reason Cherie ended up taking such a drastically different path with her own life.  It may be hard to believe the circumstances under which Currie ended up joining the band, but then again, there’s only so much time to tell a story on screen.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps where the film doesn’t succeed as well as we’d like it to.  THE RUNAWAYS may be an adaptation, but the screenplay (written by Sigismondi as well) leaves a lot to be desired.  While the characters we’re watching are exceedingly interesting, the pacing and story simply isn’t.  We all know these girls got together, formed a band, got famous, fell apart, and went their separate ways.  As I said before, that’s been well-documented.  But there’s no real arc here, no sense of closure or hope.  Joan Jett went on to have a successful singing career, and is highly respected in the music industry, but that’s only briefly mentioned in a pre-credits lead-in text.  Currie eventually made changes in her life, and left behind her bad ways, but again… that’s not expanded on.  Instead we get a bleak, downer ending that leaves us (the viewer) feeling more incomplete than the band’s potential.  Every real-life story worth telling needs to end with at least some feeling of hope or possibility… not simply with gloom and doom.  And that’s the biggest shortcoming of THE RUNAWAYS.  You’ll walk out of the theater feeling like you got to know Joan and Cherie a little, but to what end?  What was the point?  And let’s not gloss over the fact that other members of the band are barely mentioned or sadly become set dressing.  Like Lita Ford, whose character in the movie might as well had not even had a name.  Talk about a gross case of neglect!  Ford had her own notable rock legacy, and she’s not worth expanding upon?  That boggles my mind.

All that said, THE RUNAWAYS isn’t a bad movie, it’s just not the great movie it could have been.  What it does have is incredible and memorable performances, some of which should be star-making.  I think this will be a film many will explore in years to come, but when thinking of what it might have become had things been handled a little differently… well, that’s ultimately the saddest part of it.  I would recommend anyone with even thee slightest interest in rock music from the past 30 years give it a look, even if just for educational purposes, but to get a definitive perspective on the band, make an effort to watch the excellent documentary EDGEPLAY: A FILM ABOUT THE RUNAWAYS.  More info on that HERE.

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