PLAYMIXT MOVIE REVIEW: THE RUNAWAYS
While being familiar with Joan Jett’s solo work (being a child of the 1980s), Playmixt admits to scarcely any knowledge of her prior band, The Runaways, which she was in with Lita Ford. With two ‘80s powerhouse solo acts that emerged from the same band, you’d think the legacy of the group would be a bit more well-known. With an eye towards remedying that lack of fame came the 2010 film The Runaways.
Biopics in general have a certain arc to them, and biopics of music acts have some specific points that become routine: recording the first single or album, hearing it on the radio, playing the first gig, the inevitable slide into drugs or road temptation, etc. What’s unusual about The Runaways is that a good number of those prime moments are missing from the film. The only time you see the group in the studio is when they’re falling apart, which was confusing: I came out of the film wondering if they’d even released an album during their short time together. A quick trip to the Google machine turned up the fact that the original lineup released 3 albums in about 2 years together.
The film focuses on the friendship between Joan Jett and lead singer Cherie Currie, and their transformation at the hands of manager Kim Fowley. The IMDB website entry for the film mentions their rise to fame, opening for bands like Cheap Trick, Rush, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and the Ramones, but none of those bands are even mentioned in the film. There is one scene where Joan trashes the guitars of the band they’re opening for (mean old men who would not let them soundcheck), but the headlining band isn’t noted in the film. These missing details exemplify the wandering nature of the film’s second half – it seems like the group comes together, writes “Cherry Bomb” and is instantly on tour in Japan… without any real sense of how much time has passed.
The Runaways also has a disturbing undercurrent which predicts the modern tarty pre-teen pop star. Kim Fowley’s efforts to sexualize the band (and if you’ve ever heard their best-known tune, “Cherry Bomb,” you know what I’m talking about) are a combination of glam over-the-topness but come very close to borderline pedophilia. None of the members were 16 years old when the band began, and the first scene of the film is literally Cherie Currie getting her first period. Fowley admits to wanting the group to be “jailbait,” although the movie – and its making-of features on the DVD – tend to play this aspect off as “girl power!” or equalizing the gender inequalities of the rock music business.
It definitely goes to show how much social mores have changed since the 1970s that Fowley’s efforts come across as less Malcolm McLaren (the semi-self-promoting manager of the Sex Pistols) and a little more… well, disturbing and unnerving in 2010. His divide-and-conquer methods of controlling the act backfire when jealousy ensues as a result of extra attention being paid to Cherie. The casting of child film star Dakota Fanning as lead singer Cherie Currie adds to this effect, as we see Fowley goading a shy Cherie into becoming the pseudo-Bowie femme fatale singing “Hello world, I’m your wild girl, I’m your ch-ch ch-ch ch-ch ch-cherry bomb!” in the scene where they write that first hit. You certainly won’t remember all the child roles she’s played after seeing her sing that song in The Runaways.
Kirsten Stewart, an actress I’ve not thought too much of since her facial expression doesn’t seem to change much, does a good Joan Jett impression. Her sleepy eyed demeanor serves her well in the part, and actually serves to highlight the changes to her look that Joan has made via plastic surgery. If you see photos of Joan today, her eyes look WIDE OPEN like an anime character, and I couldn’t help but think about that when compared to Stewart’s version of her.
As for the rest of the band, drummer Sandy West is nearly a non-entity, and guitarist Lita Ford only speaks any lines during the inevitable “studio meltdown” sequence. Their bassist, Jackie Fox, is played by Alia Shawkat, who played Maybe in Arrested Development, but I don’t believe she had a single line in the film (research indicates the actual bassist opted out participating in the film and asked that her “character’s” name be changed). This is also disappointing, as one assumes the girls coalesced as a group in order to bring their music out to the world. What did each one contribute to the act? The movie makes it seem like Joan and Cherie did everything themselves at Kim Fowley’s promptings. They were huge in Japan, but you’re not really sure why because you never see an album being created. The only reason the film gives is a risque photo shoot with Currie that got turned into some sort of “souvenir program.”
Things I did like about the movie - overall the performances were very good, with Dakota Fanning turning in a career-changing performance as Cherie. The film goes out of its way to show the band’s debt to David Bowie for inspiration, and even the Sex Pistols (although now that I think of it, that band would’ve been coming around about the time the original lineup split). The concert re-creations look spot-on, and the scene of the band’s first gig at a house party shows how Kim’s “heckler drill” prepared them for the backlash from people who weren’t used to seeing girls rock out.
While The Runaways is based on Currie’s autobiography, and produced by Joan Jett, the lack of a full picture of the group was one of the most disappointing aspects of the film. Lita Ford had a huge hit in the late 1980s with “Kiss Me Deadly,” but The Runaways tells you next to nothing about her musical career prior to that. The focus is firmly placed on the Jett/Currie friendship which at one point dallies into the realm of bed partners – another unsettling aspect when thinking about the ages of these characters. There’s a brief post-Runaways segment that addresses Joan’s going solo and perhaps even reaching detente with Cherie, but as a film, The Runaways left me still a bit mystified as to the story behind this band.
The Runaways is out now on DVD.
