The Runaways
Written and Directed by: Floria Sigismondi
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon

I feel like I’ve seen an awful lot of Kristen Stewart at this year’s Sundance, and I’ve only seen her on the screen. There are two films at the festival in which she stars, the other being the excellent Welcome to the Rileys. However, The Runaways has had the most hype with Kristen being smuggled around Park City for interviews and a live performance by Joan Jett a few days ago.

The Runaways were a ’70s teenage girl band who rose to fame with heavy marketing on being “real-life” jail bait and an unconventional sound of a girl band playing electric guitars. The film follows their formation, rise to fame and eventual fallout with a real coming-of-age angle of the girls’ experiences.

To be honest I was planning on skipping this one; it’s going to be a huge release and it just looked a bit tiring and over the top. But I changed my mind and I’m glad I did because it was a fun film to watch. Saying that, I’m glad I now wont have to give up an evening back home to check it out in a theater. This has been given the buzz word description of the festival’s “guilty pleasure” which is a fair description. It’s not a great film, it wont change your world, but it’s entertaining and engaging.

There is a lot more emphasis on Dakota Fanning’s character, Cherie Currie, than I was expecting but I hadn’t realized this was based on her book, which is her account of the band’s journey. Cherie was the singer of the band whose departure, in part due to her struggle with a serious drug addiction, caused them to disband.

Dakota Fanning is a great actress and really gives everything to this performance but unfortunately she gives a little bit too much and that begins to grate towards the end. Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett is fantastic, she embodies the role perfectly and you constantly want her to have more screen time. It’s a fairly reserved performance but it comes as welcome relief to the extremely intense performance Dakota Fanning gives.

Michael Shannon is hilarious as the band’s manager Kim Fowley; he has the most peculiar wardrobe imaginable and steals the majority of scenes he appears in. The musical performances are some of the best moments of the film but as a whole there is little cohesion to the story and it’s very much a series of occasional enjoyable moments surrounded by meandering scenes of Cherie ambling around stoned trying to figure it all out.

It has interesting direction and a darker feel to it than I was expecting. If you’re looking for something fairly fun without too much depth, and great music, you’ll enjoy watching The Runaways. — Charlotte

You can read more of Charlotte’s Sundance coverage over at The Documentary Blog or by following her on Twitter.

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