The Runaways (2010)

When I heard that Kristen Stewart had been cast as Joan Jett in The Runaways biopic, I have to admit it made me shudder. I have clear childhood memories of Ms. Jett poured into leather pants, with bright red stripes of blush across her cheekbones, being the toughest swaggering broad I’d ever seen on TV. I also have a clear recollection of mousey, under-emoting Stewart in Panic Room and both Twilight films. You can understand my distress.

But, eureka, I think K.Stew loves rock n roll. Only true love can explain how this ordinarily lackluster young actress has managed to mold herself into a believable, exuberant reincarnation of rock’s original bad girl. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

The Runaways is not just a biopic. It’s also a coming of age story that opens with a drip of blood on the pavement. Fifteen-year-old Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) has just gotten her first period ahead of her twin sister, Marie (Riley Keogh). The pretty young sisters are left on their own in the LA club scene of the mid-1970s by their alcoholic father and self-absorbed mother (Tatum O’Neal in a cameo that lends vintage 70’s appeal). They smoke, drink, and idolize David Bowie. Cherrie even chops her hair into a Ziggy Stardust mullet and lip-synchs to his “Lady Grinning Soul” at a school talent show.

At one of these clubs, Joan meets record producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) and tells him her dream of putting together an all-girl band. This is after the self-taught guitarist has convinced a shop owner to sell her a girl-size leather biker outfit and has blown off a pro music instructor who tells her that girls don’t play electric guitar.

For Joan, it’s about women’s lib. For Kim, it’s about women’s libido, he lasciviously tells her while he’s decked out in lipstick and a rhinestone dog collar. So he recruits Cherie as the band’s “jailbait Brigitte Bardot” without ever hearing her sing a note. The rest of the band includes drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve), guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton), and a character named Robin (Alia Shawcat), who I can only assume is a composite of all three bass players in the band’s early lineup.

For a while, the band practices in a beat-up old trailer to the strains of Kim’s Svengali/slave driver bellows. His desire to have them play as well as the boys while looking like braless sex kittens is a testament to the gender-confused times and the youth of these impressionable girls. When they hit the road, first in small clubs in the U.S. and then in Japan (where they were huge), rock inevitably finds its two perennial companions: sex and drugs.

It’s a gritty, heady time that director Floria Sigismondi captures beautifully. She uses the grainy film style so often associated with 1970s movies (porn, more specifically) and offers up unblinking portrayals of the girls’ sexual self-discovery–the first period is followed up with a showerhead-assisted first orgasm and a Joan-Cherie lesbian affair. But where the director really shines is in capturing the on-stage antics and energy of the band’s performances. These scenes, scored by The Runaways hits like “Cherry Bomb,” are so much fun that even the slightly episodic story-telling and clichéd montage of headlines used to indicate the girls taking the world by storm are forgivable.

Less forgivable is the short shrift given to the band members that aren’t Joan or Cherie. Even though the film was executive-produced by Jett and based on Currie’s autobiography Neon Angel (the screenplay was adapted by Sigismondi), it’s unclear why the other girls seem to be bit players in their own band. In particular, it would have been nice to see more of Shawcat, who proved herself a welcome addition to the cast of this summer’s Whip It.

Thankfully, the actresses who take center-stage do it well. Fanning gives a passionate, nuanced performance. She’s excited and terrified by her unexpected counterculture success, even as she is rightfully accused of abandonment by her sister and ends up in too deep with pills and booze. Stewart, for her part, delivers a strong, smart portrayal of one of rock’s strongest, smartest leading ladies.

In reality, The Runaways rise and fall spanned only about four years. But on film, the transition from bona-fide sensations to washed-up has-beens is hardly smooth. And the front half of the film is much better than the latter half, where it feels as though too much was left on the cutting room floor. These complaints aside, The Runaways is an enjoyable blend of biopic and female coming-of-age story with a great soundtrack to boot.

(If you’re a fan of The Runaways, head over to Amazon to buy CDs, DVDs and books from the legendary all-girl band. We’ll get a small commission, which we’ll use to keep bringing you quality movie reviews.)