Short Take: The quality of the performances alone make the film worth viewing

Director: Floria Sigismondi (Début)

Screenwriter: Floria Sigismondi (Début)

Cast: Dakota Fanning (Twilight Saga: New Moon, Push), Kristen Stewart (Twilight Saga: New Moon, Adventureland), Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road; My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done)

Length: 1 hour 45 minutes

Synopsis: The film details the rise and fall of the first major female rock band, The Runaways, mainly through the eyes of the band’s lead singer, Cherie Currie (Fanning).  The band forms in the mid 1970s when a determined young Joan Jett (Stewart) befriends a Svengali-like music producer Kim Fowley (Shannon).  After discovering Cherie in a nightclub, they cultivate the band’s rough, energetic sound.  They travel around the country doing small shows and when the band finally takes off, the girls, still in their teens, struggle to cope with their life of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

Analysis: Though The Runaways is loosely based upon the real Cherie Currie’s 1989 memoir Neon Angel, the film seems more like a recreation of the California rock ‘n’ roll scene in the mid- to late-‘70s than a strict biopic of the titular band.  Writer-director Floria Sigismondi has spent much of her career making music videos, and the film reflects that somewhat since onstage performances do make up a significant part of the film’s running time.  Moreover, music videos often condense a complex story into a few brief minutes and therefore only the broadest plot elements are shown.  The Runaways unfolds in a similar fashion.  Sigismondi shows only brief glimpses of the band’s rise: shots of them practicing under Fowley’s tutelage, glimpses of the intimate connection between Cherie and Joan, Cherie’s slow dissent into a drug-induced haze and finally Joan’s determination to make music saving her from oblivion.  The plot is made just clear enough to be understandable while more attention is given to creating the mise-en-scène – specifically the costuming and settings – more authentic and interesting.

The characters are just as broadly drawn.  Joan, Fowley, and Cherie are the most detailed, but they change little during the film.  Fowley remains the eccentric yet brilliant producer throughout and Joan is ever the strong and driven leader who knows exactly what she wants.  Cherie is the most developed character (unsurprising considering the story is mostly told from her perspective) in that she moves from shy and innocent to drug-addicted and jaded during the course of the film.  On the whole, the film offers little in the originality department in terms of either story arc or character type.  However, where it excels is in the strength of the lead trio’s performances and Sigismondi’s style. The film essentially showcases the interactions Cherie, Joan and Fowley share and Sigismondi simply provides the ‘70s milieu in which they live.

Sigismondi’s style is most explicit in the film’s numerous on-stage performances.  The rendition of “Cherry Bomb,” the band’s first big hit, is sexy and powerful and perfectly conveys The Runaways’ style and presence.  The musical performance is filmed much like a modern music video with only the shag haircuts and costuming indicating its actual time period.  Sigismondi’s attention to period detail and her somewhat gritty filming style (especially her richly saturated color palate) seems to project both the band’s energy and the period’s hedonistism.  One instance where Sigismondi effectively appropriates her music video style for a more dramatic scene comes when Cherie and Joan share their first kiss.  As they relax in a roller rink in a drug-induced daze, Joan suddenly moves toward Cherie.  Sigismondi bathes the pair in red light and while the suggestion of passion is fairly obvious, it’s also extremely effective.  However, as convincing as Sigismondi’s version of hedonistic ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll is, the film is at its best when the mise-en-scène takes a back seat to the performances.

Stewart, Fanning and Shannon work hard to embody their characters, and their efforts show.  Stewart, who met Jett who produces the film, seems especially adept at mimicking the singer’s mannerisms and the performance stands in contrast to the less confident characters she plays in other films like Twilight’s Bella or her character in Into the Wild.  Shannon, much like his Oscar-nominated performance in 2008’s Revolutionary Road, embraces his character’s eccentricity and his is likely the most notable performance since he dominates every scene in which he appears.  Fanning, who also met Currie, has the most emotionally complex role, emphasizing Currie’s vulnerability to make her more sympathetic.  Rather than portray her as a willing participant in her own sexualization, she instead seems an innocent young woman too inexperienced to handle fame.  Some of the best scenes in the film are driven more by characters than either the music or plot.  One of the strongest scenes occurs when Cherie, pushed too far by Fowley, quits the band in the middle of a recording session.  Though the scene is interesting for its importance to the plot, the way the actors portray their characters makes the scene memorable.  Fowley’s eccentricity has suddenly turned to cruelty, Joan’s drive to desperation and Cherie’s eagerness to exhaustion.  It is the tensest moment the characters share and the result is a fascinating character study.

The Runaways is by no means the definitive portrayal of the band, but it doesn’t try to be.  It simply gives a glimpse of what these people lived through and the world that surrounded them.  Even if Sigismondi has made a bit of a glorified music video, it’s still a pretty good one.

Rating: 7.5