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Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), left, joins Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) in “The Runaways,” based on the all-girl rock group. |
“The Runaways” tells that oh-so-familiar tale of a promising, cutting-edge rock band created in a messy birth of ego and opportunism before hitting the heights of fame and fortune, only to slowly implode from drugs and jealousy until its members limp away from the wreckage to go their separate directions.
Even by today’s standards, the story of the real 1970s band the Runaways should still pack the power to shock us with its under-aged girl rockers sucked into a vortex of sex, drugs and abuse by a creepy Svengali who pushed, berated and intimidated his clients into becoming sleazy sex objects who played instruments and sang.
Nonetheless, “The Runaways,” directed by photographer, sculptor, artist, TV commercial maker and rock-video director Floria Sigismondi, feels utterly conventional and almost blasé about its subject, especially in the latter half.
The story begins with leather-swaddled high school rebel Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) wanting to play electric guitar in an era when it was a boys-only instrument.
She seeks out noted music producer Kim Fowley (Chicago’s own Michael Shannon) at the same time drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) approaches him. He smells success with a novelty all-girl band in a business dominated by hormonal males.
He throws them together to see what they come up with, and the results are so encouraging he can practically taste the money. Fowley thinks the band needs an injection of hot sex appeal, and that leads him to Cherie Currie (a grown-up Dakota Fanning). (Read more…)