The Runaways (2010)

Directed by Floria Sigismondi. Starring Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, Michael Shannon, Riley Keough, Scout Taylor-Compton, Stella Maeve, Alia Shawkat, Johnny Lewis. [R]

Heavily-dramatized coming-of-ager based on the rise and fall of the first major all-girl punk rock band, the Runaways, the brain child of record producer Kim Fowley (Shannon), who’s portrayed as a sleazy, exploitative opportunist. Film focuses on street-tough guitarist Joan Jett (Stewart) and uncertain singer Cherie Currie (Fanning)—who’s sold by Fowley’s PR machine as sex kitten jailbait—while the rest of the band are barely even given names (with Jett as a producer and writer/director Sigismondi’s script being loosely based off Currie’s memoir, this isn’t much of a surprise, but the imbalance is still frustrating). Energetic and packed with snarling rock n’ roll tunes, but also narrow, shallow, and all-too-familiar; solid acting and raunchy guitars can only do so much with the sort of story that’s been told again and again, especially one with the sort of gaps that reek of dramatic license rewrites and convenience (e.g., same-sex relations are intimated and then immediately dropped multiple times). The scene of Fowley using word association to come up with the title of the group’s signature song, “Cherry Bomb,” on the fly is laugh-out-loud funny…even though that’s clearly not the reaction the filmmakers were aiming for. Real-life Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs declined to release her rights, so the bass player shown onscreen is named Robin (Shawkat).

60/100