'Runaways' features familiar rock band refrain

"The Runaways" tells that oh-so-familiar tale of a promising, cutting-edge rock band created in a messy birth of ego and opportunism before hitting the heights of fame and fortune, only to slowly implode from drugs and jealousy until its members limp away from the wreckage to go their separate directions.

Even by today's standards, the story of the real 1970s band the Runaways should still pack the power to shock us with its under-aged girl rockers sucked into a vortex of sex, drugs and abuse by a creepy Svengali who pushed, berated and intimidated his clients into becoming sleazy sex objects who played instruments and sang.

Nonetheless, "The Runaways," directed by photographer, sculptor, artist, TV commercial maker and rock-video director Floria Sigismondi, feels utterly conventional and almost blasé about its subject, especially in the latter half.

The story begins with leather-swaddled high school rebel Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) wanting to play electric guitar in an era when it was a boys-only instrument.

She seeks out noted music producer Kim Fowley (Chicago's own Michael Shannon) at the same time drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) approaches him. He smells success with a novelty all-girl band in a business dominated by hormonal males.

He throws them together to see what they come up with, and the results are so encouraging he can practically taste the money. Fowley thinks the band needs an injection of hot sex appeal, and that leads him to Cherie Currie (a grown-up Dakota Fanning).

From a broken home with an alcoholic father and absent mother, Cherie has the pouty, come-hither look of a jailbait Bridget Bardot. During rehearsals in a dilapidated house trailer, Fowley shouts and prods Cherie to become a lightning bolt of unbridled sexuality.

"It's not about women's lib!" Fowley screeches, "It's about women's libidos!"

On the fly, he invents lyrics to her signature song, "Cherry Bomb," and she's anything but on the rock stage.

Spurred on by Fowley, the Runaways - along with future heavy metal star Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and a composite bassist (Alia Shawkat) - start small in dives and schools, but arrive in Japan where they're given a Beatles-level reception.

"The Runaways" works best when Sigismondi presents it as a near-impressionistic experience merging dreamy, floating images with music.

She doesn't shy away from the sexual relationship between Joan and Cherie, or from Cherie's increasingly destructive drug habits.

Joan Jett is obviously the strongest story of the Runaways. (She went on to a solo career with the Blackhearts and had a best-selling album after 27 record labels passed on it.)

Yet, "The Runaways" continues to focus on Cherie, who dropped out of the band to become the very middle-class denizen the group wanted to rock against.

Fanning's juxtaposition of childlike innocence and raw seduction projects a compelling, almost disturbing quality here. Most important, Fanning never fails to communicate the hurting, lonely little girl inside.

Stewart captures the distinctive look of Joan Jett, but the "Twilight" actress' natural propensity for reserved emotions doesn't match her character. At all.

Shannon enjoys the film's glitziest role as the conniving catalyst for the Runaways creation.

Kinky, crass and capitalistic, Shannon's Fowley commands the screen, especially when screaming encouragements to his band, only a fraction of which could ever be printed in a family newspaper.

<p class="factboxheadblack">"The Runaways"</p>

<p class="News">★★½</p>

<p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, Michael Shannon, Riley Keough, Scout Taylor-Compton</p>

<p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Floria Sigismondi</p>

<p class="News"><b>Other:</b> An Apparition Entertainment release. Rated R for drug use, language, sexual situations. 109 minutes</p>