The Runaways tells the age old tale of rock n' roll decadence. The story is all the same and sadly it's true. Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) is struggling to get a band together. Rock n' roll stories always begin with struggle. The dream develops into a band when the final piece, singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) joins the band. Enter Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), a glam rock version of Colonel Tom Parker, pimping out his girl rock band to the world and reaping the benefits. They make it big. Then they collapse. Rock is full of stories like these and The Runaways follows yet another band that dug itself out of the pit of obscurity to stardom only to implode on itself.
As I said with the film Remember Me, it is becoming obvious that the actors in the Twilight films aren't being given much to work with. Kirsten Stewart delivers what is probably her best role to date as Joan Jett, light years away from the vampire garbage she'll be typecast for in later years. The cool thing about The Runaways is that it feels like your looking at pictures from the 1970's as the film progresses. The scenes are lit so that they have that dinginess; that, dare I say, malaise that made the '70's a garbage heap at times. Director Floria Sigismondi delivers a time capsule for us to marvel at, when jail bait was an openly accepted treat and girls weren't supposed to be rockers, they were supposed to screw the rockers. This film is in no way a masterpiece, but it's riveting and delivers yet another story from the rock n' roll graveyard.
No comments:
Post a Comment