The Runaways

The Runaways

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03/17/2010

There’s a funny moment early in this drama about the ’70s all-female rock band the Runaways: Record producer Kim Fowley (Shannon) is trying to find a singer for the band and spies Cherie Currie (Fanning) at a club. When he learns she’s still 15, his eyes light up. “Jailbait!” he shouts, with visions of sexy teen bad-girl marketing campaigns dancing in his head. Joan Jett (Stewart) and Cherie embrace the dream of girls with guitars seriously rocking out, while Kim sees them as a novelty to be exploited.

If you don’t know much about the Runaways, this film treatment will give you a little helpful back-of-the-envelope synopsis of their career. If you do know something about them, you may be puzzled over why the film focuses so heavily on Currie and Jett, turning the other members of the band into set decoration in the Currie/Jett story. You may also wonder why this account of their career follows the usual arc of rock biopics so predictably—scrappy start, rise to fame, drugs, dissolution, aftermath. The Runaways were trying to break with convention by showing hard-rocking women. It’s a bit disappointing that the film turns out to be so conventional.

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