A film looking into the forming of teen all-girl rock band The Runaways in the 1970s, led by Joan Jet and Cherie Currie.
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A little bit of background that I have wanted to see this film since it was released but never actually got round to it until seeing it appear on Amazon Prime. Glam rock and classic rock music is my favourite genre of music, therefore many years ago now I came across The Runaways and get right into their music. I had a little bit of background on the members so had always wanted to catch this film.
We see Joan Jett come up with the idea of the all-girl rock band and really wanting to make it happen and push it forward with Kim Fowley a manager who is extremely sleazy. Cherie Currie is only 15 years old when she joins the band and lets face it she is not looked after at all or even helped and the way her life spirals out of control was always going to happen really. Her father is an alcoholic and her mother quickly abandons her and her sister to move away with a new man.
Something I found a little bit frustrating with this was Kim Fowley and how at times he was put in a positive light when it was clear he was a horrible man. Reading up about him after watching the film more than confirmed that and something this film did not want to address at all. Although he was still alive when the film was released so maybe that had something to do with it?
It glorifies underaged drinking quite a few times really which shows the major differences from the 70s culture to the present day. Something that is crazy in this story is that they were allowed to go on different tours and all the way to Japan without any major supervision.
Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart lead the film well enough with support from Michael Shannon. They become the characters and in that sense they are good to watch, but the actual content of the film was rather disappointing. I wanted more of the songs in all honesty and then getting to know each character was a little lacklustre overall. Compared to other music biopic films this just doesn't come anywhere near which is a big shame, as people probably know less about this story.
