Sex! Drugs! Rock ‘n’ roll! With all of these sure to be included, “The Runaways” already had a head start to become a fun movie before its screenplay was even written.
Too bad the final product wound up as one of the most clichéd and boring band films ever made.
Based on the true story of the 1970s all-girl band of the same name, “The Runaways” stars Kristen Stewart as a young Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, who is recruited at 15 to become the band’s lead singer. The film follows the girls as they navigate the sexist music industry, find stardom abroad and eventually reach the demise that led Jett to become a popular solo artist.
What should have been one of the most illuminating aspects of the film is Jett’s journey from a confused teenager to one of the best performers of her generation.
But the screenplay turns her into a walking cliché, following her from a guitar lesson with a teacher who tells her “girls don’t play electric guitar,” to ripping-up, safety-pinning and spray-painting a Sex Pistols T-shirt to wear on stage — that’s how you know she’s cooler than the other girls in the group.
The film also hints at a struggle for Jett to understand her sexual preference, but shies away from ever explaining it. It’s a shame, because if this was supposed to be a film about teenage girls coming of age, that would most likely have been a bigger deal for the young Jett. Instead, the movie weirdly plays her off as somewhat of a sexual predator, tempting her bandmates with what seems like experimentation instead of relationships.
While a movie like this is obviously going to include a lot of explicit sex, drug use and language, “The Runaways” is almost gratuitously raunchy in a way that’s distracting. None of the characters can utter a sentence without at least one expletive awkwardly sandwiched within it, and Michael Shannon as the girls’ manager is ridiculously over-the-top in a way that comes off more uncomfortable than creepy. None of the raunch is done right and it weighs the story down.
Another problem with the story is how its actors handle it. The three or four other girls in the band barely get any screen time, let alone many lines — especially the actress who plays Lita Ford, who found considerable fame after her time with The Runaways.
Stewart is immensely annoying as Jett and plays her in the same mumbly, awkward way she’s played every other character in her career, except this time she does it with a bad haircut, growling and yelling a lot between her stuttering speech.
The one bright spot is Fanning. Once you get over the fact that you’re watching this former child star kissing Stewart and snorting drugs off the floor in skimpy lingerie, you’ll discover she’s still a pretty believable actress. A scene involving a drugged-out Currie pushing a shopping cart and berating a supermarket employee is an example of her immense talent.
A story like this had so much material to work with and could have been a real standout among the numerous music biopics that came before it.
What resulted, instead, is a story you’ve seen a hundred times before, and it will leave you feeling cold and unaffected. You’ll wonder if this is all that really happened with the band, because ultimately, it’s not much. Either the writers left a lot of juicy details out, or the girls really were this boring and predictable.
There’s nothing new here that will make you feel like The Runaways were a distinct enough band to deserve a feature-length film dedicated to them.
Grade: D