By Marie Straub
When Britney bared her midriff and dared the world to hit her one more time while dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, we all knew it was a little naughty for a teenager to flirt with sexy like that. When Miley Cyrus posed for
Vanity Fair wearing nothing but a sheet, the world cried out ‘But she’s just 15!’ in indignance. But we forget that, way before Britney was cuddling a Teletubbie in her underwear on a
Rolling Stone cover and Miley was pole-dancing at the
Teen Choice Awards, there were the original ‘good girls gone bad’ –
The Runaways. Now, the story behind this band of under-age girl rockers of an altogether more hardcore variety is being unfolded in a film of the same name. Be prepared for a real ‘Cherry Bomb’.
Set in Los Angeles in 1975,
The Runaways details the rise of the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name. Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) is, for all intents and purposes, raising herself, while Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) is barely surviving her mother (Tatum O’Neal), a failed actress more interested in men than raising her daughters, ultimately leaving them with their alcoholic father and grandmother to move to Indonesia with her latest flame. Jett’s one love is music, and she will go on to become the rock and roll heart of the band. Cherie - found by Jett and rock impresario, Kim Fowley (
Academy Award® nominee, Michael Shannon) at Rodney Bingenheimer’s famous LA club, English Disco - is destined to be the sex kitten that fronts them.
This coming-of-age story looks at the seedier realities of the music industry as these teenagers from the Valley negotiate their way into rock and roll history, paving the way for the many girl rockers who would follow them. Anchored in the world of sex, booze and drugs which surrounds the girls on their road to stardom, this film revolves around the central relationship between Jett and Cherie – the one driven by her love for music, the other spiralling out of control amidst the many influences of her newfound fame. Despite their rapid rise to celebrity,
The Runaways ultimately dissolved three years and five albums later, and this film takes a closer look at why.
The first commendation that must go the way of
The Runaways is for the brilliant performances churned out by the cast. Michael Shannon embodies both the smooth charm and dark manipulation that is Kim Fowley, wrapped in a cover of too much make-up; flamboyant suits; and just the right amount of rock and roll. Looking to make money from cheap talent, he works the girls harder than a supervisor in a Chinese sweatshop. Whether he’s warning the girls that ‘men don’t want to see women anywhere but in their kitchens’ or coaching them on embracing the kind of sexy that sells – ‘you bitches gotta start thinking like men’ – he is hell-bent on cashing in on the young girls’ blossoming sexuality. When he picks out a young Cherie who has been singing along to David Bowie records in school talent shows at a club, he asks her how old she is. His response, when she says 15, is: “Jailbait! F***ing jackpot!” And a jackpot is what she will prove to be. Cherie proves the best at learning his primary lesson of thinking like a man – performing and posing for pictures in lingerie. Fanning takes on her riskiest role yet, and aces it. She oozes sex appeal and seductiveness – all the more disturbing considering she is the same age as Cherie was at the time, and in cinemagoers minds, is still the ultimate ‘little girl’. Alongside her, Stewart gives a performance that will surprise those who found her boring in the
Twilight-franchise. She brings to screen the tough-as-nails Joan Jett, who likes shopping in the men’s section, even if ‘guys like girls who are soft and flirty’ and who chooses to teach herself rather than strumming along to ‘On Top Of Old Smokey’, when told by a teacher that ‘girls don’t play electric guitar’. In an era in which boys flirt with the feminine, comes a group of girls embracing a masculine energy. Every girl who has rebelled against being kept in the kitchen or has wanted to give the world the middle finger will love it.
The script is not the strongest, but it’s in the music; the performances; and production designer, Eugenio Caballero’s (he won the
Academy Award® for
Pan’s Labyrinth) rendering of the 70s in such brilliance you’ll feel you lived it (if only for 100-odd minutes). From Fanning’s unnerving ‘Bowie meets Bardot’ sexiness, to Stewart’s determined challenging of the stereotyped ‘woman’ the world is telling her to become, this is a girl power movie that comes without the sugar-coating. The casualties on the road to an equal place for women in the world of rock (and elsewhere), have been many. Romanticising many of the pioneers who pushed boundaries would be a mistake, but that’s one error this film doesn’t make. You’ll love the music, feel conflicted about the road that made it, and probably leave the cinema wondering what exploitation looks like today. Maybe we should ask Miley and Britney. Four stars.
The Runaways is at cinemas from 18 June 2010.