The Runaways - Review by Josh Tyler
Those of you with a Twilight astigmatism won’t like reading this, but here it is anyway: Kristen Stewart is a modern day James Dean. She gives the kind of performance in The Runaways that hasn’t been seen on screen since his death. The Runaways is her Rebel Without a Cause and what’s more that disaffected, rebellious persona seems to be one which, as it did with Dean, carries over into her real life. In person Stewart is every bit as tousled and seemingly disaffected as she is playing a rock and roll icon on screen. She’s absolutely brilliant as Joan Jett, it's the role she was born to play, and yet this is not her movie.
Instead The Runaways is really the story of Cherie Curry. Played by Dakota Fanning she’s a 15-year-old girl from a broken home who’s recruited for the band mostly because she has the right look. Jett is always there, off to the side or in the background. She’s the driving force of The Runaways and clearly not only the real talent of the band but the only girl who actually seems to love what they’re doing. But Jett leaps on screen almost as if she’s already fully formed. We never really know much about her beyond the rock goddess. She has no family, no history, no past. For that there’s Curry, a girl who’s not so much a rocker as a victim of the 70s rock and roll machine.
She’s snatched up by strange but seemingly knowledgeable record producer Ken Fowley (played by a brilliantly zany, scene-stealing Michael Shannon) who’s working with Jett to create the world’s first all-girl band. Joan has the talent while Fowley has the know-how and together they put the girls through a rock and roll boot camp. Cherie is plugged in as a singer, since she can’t do anything else, and because Fowley wants her out front to sex things up (their hit song Cherry Bomb touts her as jail bait). The Runaways are a rock and roll band in every sense: they play hard-edged, rebellious, sex-tinged music and it’s not long before they’re on tour immersed in the obligatory sex and drugs which goes along with the rock and roll.
Curry, only 15, can’t take it and the movie follows as she and the girls rise to stardom and begin their inevitable downfall. Fanning gives the kind of adult performance we’ve never really seen from her before and she’s absolutely perfect, deftly capturing the desperate innocence of Curry as she spirals down into a world that’s clearly more than she can handle. But then in the background there’s always Jett, even at her most drugged out clearly in control and breathing rock and roll. Curry, who never seemed to like rock music all that much in the first place, latches on to her like a port in a storm, but Joan is too busy breathing rock n’ roll to help.
First time feature director Floria Sigismondi takes a tired rock formula and manages to make it all her own. The Runaways looks fantastic and it’s paced in such a way that it’s always moving, pounding along to the same rock and roll beat which powers its music. It’s the story of tragedy, in Curry, and pure unbridled talent, in Jett. The rock and roll scenes are toe-tapping fun and the tale of an all girl band manufactured, unleashed, and then run aground is as interesting and gripping as it ought to be. The Runaways, as part of a genre which has been done to death, may not contain many surprises but in spite of that, manages to feel fresh.
Instead The Runaways is really the story of Cherie Curry. Played by Dakota Fanning she’s a 15-year-old girl from a broken home who’s recruited for the band mostly because she has the right look. Jett is always there, off to the side or in the background. She’s the driving force of The Runaways and clearly not only the real talent of the band but the only girl who actually seems to love what they’re doing. But Jett leaps on screen almost as if she’s already fully formed. We never really know much about her beyond the rock goddess. She has no family, no history, no past. For that there’s Curry, a girl who’s not so much a rocker as a victim of the 70s rock and roll machine.
She’s snatched up by strange but seemingly knowledgeable record producer Ken Fowley (played by a brilliantly zany, scene-stealing Michael Shannon) who’s working with Jett to create the world’s first all-girl band. Joan has the talent while Fowley has the know-how and together they put the girls through a rock and roll boot camp. Cherie is plugged in as a singer, since she can’t do anything else, and because Fowley wants her out front to sex things up (their hit song Cherry Bomb touts her as jail bait). The Runaways are a rock and roll band in every sense: they play hard-edged, rebellious, sex-tinged music and it’s not long before they’re on tour immersed in the obligatory sex and drugs which goes along with the rock and roll.
Curry, only 15, can’t take it and the movie follows as she and the girls rise to stardom and begin their inevitable downfall. Fanning gives the kind of adult performance we’ve never really seen from her before and she’s absolutely perfect, deftly capturing the desperate innocence of Curry as she spirals down into a world that’s clearly more than she can handle. But then in the background there’s always Jett, even at her most drugged out clearly in control and breathing rock and roll. Curry, who never seemed to like rock music all that much in the first place, latches on to her like a port in a storm, but Joan is too busy breathing rock n’ roll to help.
First time feature director Floria Sigismondi takes a tired rock formula and manages to make it all her own. The Runaways looks fantastic and it’s paced in such a way that it’s always moving, pounding along to the same rock and roll beat which powers its music. It’s the story of tragedy, in Curry, and pure unbridled talent, in Jett. The rock and roll scenes are toe-tapping fun and the tale of an all girl band manufactured, unleashed, and then run aground is as interesting and gripping as it ought to be. The Runaways, as part of a genre which has been done to death, may not contain many surprises but in spite of that, manages to feel fresh.
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Review of The Runaways by A.O. Scott of The NY Times
Joan, who clearly loves Cherie (the kiss between Ms. Stewart and Ms. Fanning has become grist for talk-show chat), is also her rival and foil. Joan is the backbone of the band, and the one most able to turn Fowley’s advice into a program of professional success. And Ms. Stewart, watchful and unassuming, gives the movie its spine and soul. Cherie may dazzle and appall you, but Joan is the one you root for, and the one rock ’n’ roll fans of every gender and generation will identify with.
Joan, who clearly loves Cherie (the kiss between Ms. Stewart and Ms. Fanning has become grist for talk-show chat), is also her rival and foil. Joan is the backbone of the band, and the one most able to turn Fowley’s advice into a program of professional success. And Ms. Stewart, watchful and unassuming, gives the movie its spine and soul. Cherie may dazzle and appall you, but Joan is the one you root for, and the one rock ’n’ roll fans of every gender and generation will identify with.
It is not always clear which story “The Runaways” wants to tell, and it hits a few too many standard music biography beats. Here, right when you expect them, are the early setbacks and heady triumphs, the pressures of the road and the pitfalls of celebrity. But Ms. Sigismondi infuses crucial scenes with a rough, energetic spirit, and shows a willingness to accept the contradictions inherent in the material without prurience, moralism or too much sentimentality. The movie may be a little too tame in the end, but at its best it is just wild enough.
Proving Their Mettle in the Men-Only Era of Rock
It helps that Floria Sigismondi, a director of music videos who is making her feature debut, has a good ear and a sharp eye for period detail. Shot (by Benoît Debie) with a grainy, smeary look that evokes the decade as effectively as the clothes and haircuts, “The Runaways” balances nostalgia for wild bygone times with a cautionary sense of their less heroic side. Acknowledging the brazen, rebellious energy of rock ’n’ roll at the dawn of punk, Ms. Sigismondi also tallies the costs that an ardent, ambitious love of the music can exact.
The film is in effect a double biopic, chronicling the divergent fates of Ms. Jett (who is an executive producer) and Ms. Currie (whose memoir was the basis for the movie) as they learn how to play music and then how to handle fame. They start out as fans, but their aspirations to emulate their idols are blocked by long-standing sexism. “Girls can’t play the electric guitar,” a music teacher smugly informs Joan; Cherie, who worships David Bowie, is heckled and humiliated when she performs his song “Lady Grinning Soul” at a school talent show.
Joan, a sullen, skinny glue-sniffer who suggests a young, androgynous Keith Richards, is the more disciplined of the two, but their big break comes courtesy of Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), a promoter who takes the girls under his not entirely benevolent wing. After Joan approaches him at a club with the idea of starting an all-girl rock band, Fowley recruits the timid, dreamy Cherie and a bunch of other young women and subjects them to a rigorous training regimen in a broken-down trailer. He teaches them to deal with hecklers, to howl and wail and strut just like their male idols, and preaches a passionate if self-contradictory brand of macho feminism. “This is not about women’s lib,” he crows, a rooster girding his chicks for battle. “It’s about women’s libido.”
Ms. Sigismondi, as she parses this distinction, is astute in recognizing that the rise of the Runaways was fueled by a volatile blend of empowerment and exploitation. The girls, well shy of their 18th birthdays, play their own instruments and write some of their own material, but their unscrupulous Svengali keeps all the control and most of the money. (Welcome to the music business!) And the version of girl pop that sells the band to record buyers and concertgoers is not exactly Hannah Montana, or even Britney Spears. They are advertised as “genuine jailbait” and “braless,” and presented to the world as kittenish tigresses — not role models but fetish objects.
All of this — as well as the easy availability of drugs and the absence of any kind of parental supervision — proves too much for Cherie. Ms. Fanning, who has shown herself a remarkably disciplined and self-aware actress almost since toddlerhood, displays heartbreaking vulnerability as well as frightening poise. Cherie is the band’s pretty face and pinup girl, posing for a cheesecake magazine spread (at Fowley’s urging) without her band mates’ knowledge. She is also something of a homebody, with a close, complicated relationship with her twin sister, Marie (Riley Keough).
Joan, who clearly loves Cherie (the kiss between Ms. Stewart and Ms. Fanning has become grist for talk-show chat), is also her rival and foil. Joan is the backbone of the band, and the one most able to turn Fowley’s advice into a program of professional success. And Ms. Stewart, watchful and unassuming, gives the movie its spine and soul. Cherie may dazzle and appall you, but Joan is the one you root for, and the one rock ’n’ roll fans of every gender and generation will identify with.
The film is in effect a double biopic, chronicling the divergent fates of Ms. Jett (who is an executive producer) and Ms. Currie (whose memoir was the basis for the movie) as they learn how to play music and then how to handle fame. They start out as fans, but their aspirations to emulate their idols are blocked by long-standing sexism. “Girls can’t play the electric guitar,” a music teacher smugly informs Joan; Cherie, who worships David Bowie, is heckled and humiliated when she performs his song “Lady Grinning Soul” at a school talent show.
Joan, a sullen, skinny glue-sniffer who suggests a young, androgynous Keith Richards, is the more disciplined of the two, but their big break comes courtesy of Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), a promoter who takes the girls under his not entirely benevolent wing. After Joan approaches him at a club with the idea of starting an all-girl rock band, Fowley recruits the timid, dreamy Cherie and a bunch of other young women and subjects them to a rigorous training regimen in a broken-down trailer. He teaches them to deal with hecklers, to howl and wail and strut just like their male idols, and preaches a passionate if self-contradictory brand of macho feminism. “This is not about women’s lib,” he crows, a rooster girding his chicks for battle. “It’s about women’s libido.”
Ms. Sigismondi, as she parses this distinction, is astute in recognizing that the rise of the Runaways was fueled by a volatile blend of empowerment and exploitation. The girls, well shy of their 18th birthdays, play their own instruments and write some of their own material, but their unscrupulous Svengali keeps all the control and most of the money. (Welcome to the music business!) And the version of girl pop that sells the band to record buyers and concertgoers is not exactly Hannah Montana, or even Britney Spears. They are advertised as “genuine jailbait” and “braless,” and presented to the world as kittenish tigresses — not role models but fetish objects.
All of this — as well as the easy availability of drugs and the absence of any kind of parental supervision — proves too much for Cherie. Ms. Fanning, who has shown herself a remarkably disciplined and self-aware actress almost since toddlerhood, displays heartbreaking vulnerability as well as frightening poise. Cherie is the band’s pretty face and pinup girl, posing for a cheesecake magazine spread (at Fowley’s urging) without her band mates’ knowledge. She is also something of a homebody, with a close, complicated relationship with her twin sister, Marie (Riley Keough).
Joan, who clearly loves Cherie (the kiss between Ms. Stewart and Ms. Fanning has become grist for talk-show chat), is also her rival and foil. Joan is the backbone of the band, and the one most able to turn Fowley’s advice into a program of professional success. And Ms. Stewart, watchful and unassuming, gives the movie its spine and soul. Cherie may dazzle and appall you, but Joan is the one you root for, and the one rock ’n’ roll fans of every gender and generation will identify with.
It is not always clear which story “The Runaways” wants to tell, and it hits a few too many standard music biography beats. Here, right when you expect them, are the early setbacks and heady triumphs, the pressures of the road and the pitfalls of celebrity. But Ms. Sigismondi infuses crucial scenes with a rough, energetic spirit, and shows a willingness to accept the contradictions inherent in the material without prurience, moralism or too much sentimentality. The movie may be a little too tame in the end, but at its best it is just wild enough.
Source: http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/mov
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