The Runaways Script Review

Published by Jeff Leins on January 21, 2010

This weekend the 2010 Sundance Film Festival gets underway in Park City, Utah as thousands of film industry types descend upon the snowy city for the first glimpse at some of this year’s top movie prospects.

Twilight Saga: Eclipse star Kristen Stewart has two films playing the festival: the indie drama Welcome to the Rileys competing for the jury prize (I reviewed the script here) and the rock biopic The Runaways is premiering out of competition.  Joining her in the latter is a fellow Twilighter, Dakota Fanning, as well as Scout Taylor-Compton, Stella Maeve, and Alia Shawkat.

Reviews for the film are likely to pour out onto the Internet by Sunday night, but before they do I took a look at writer/director Floria Sigismondi’s script (dated July 2008).  Here are my thoughts:

The script opens on drops of period blood hitting the pavement, and you know immediately this isn’t going to be The Sisterhood of the Traveling Leather Pants.  The girl becoming a woman is Cherie Currie (Fanning), a paternal twin that patterns her renegade attitude and platinum blonde hairstyle after rock icon David Bowie.  A humiliating talent show performance set to Bowie’s “Wild is the Wind” collapses until she’s giving her classmates double middle fingers and starting a brawl in the auditorium.  Parental problems at home make her even more feisty.

Joan Jett (Stewart) is her own ball of teen angst. In her introduction Joan shoplifts a pair of black leather pants, which she celebrates by huffing glue and kissing her friend Tammy. She walks out of a guitar lesson (squaresville, maaan) and teaches herself to play instead.

Clearly the focus is on these two eventual friends and musicians, but the script spends 20 or so pages (out of 107) establishing and reiterating how independent they are.  By the time The Runaways are on a stage I couldn’t help but think, “We get it.  They’re rebellious.”  If each is a wild child that does drugs before the band, where’s the character arc?

Potentially a scene stealing role (on paper any way) is Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), the record producer that smashes the various talents into a group and manages their rise to stardom. It’s an exaggerated character of unbridled intensity, thrusting his hips as an example and screaming barbaric profanities.  He forces them to use their sexuality as a weapon and shouts comments like “this isn’t women’s lib… it’s women’s libido!”  Though there’s something off-putting about Fowley pointing to 15-year-old Curie’s crotch and saying, “Men want this!  Filthy pussy.”

A particularly cringe-worthy scene has Fowley hurling objects at them while they play to train and toughen them for the road.  What is this, Dodgeball: The Musical?

The drummer, Sandy West (Maeve), grabs a few scenes at the start by “making some noise” with Jett pre-Runaways, but once auditions are over the other band members fade to the background behind Joan and Cherie’s relationship.

From the beginning, Fowley is only interested in their look and flashy names like Joan Jett and Cherry Bomb.  The music and the era aren’t as important as the clothes and the rock and roll lifestyle, and the script reflects that sentiment. Gigs are upstaged by scenes where the girls demolish a room, smash equipment, and even urinate on a guitar. When they aren’t breaking things, The Runaways are drunk or strung out on coke, ludes, and black beauties. Because that’s what rock stars do and they’re rebels, remember?

Sigismondi seems almost obligated to hit the high points of a typical rock biopic, including riotous fans, record signings, and reckless antics, but once the party is over the script has nothing else to say.  Even the family issues are all but forgotten about.

The closest the script comes to telling a coming-of-age story is a sexual awakening of the two main characters.  A young roadie is passed between the ladies and after a big show at a rollerskating rink, Joan and Cherie share a passionate make-out scene that continues into the bedroom (Fanning has confirmed the kiss in interviews).  But you’ll recall that Joan had already had a lesbian experience back home and seems well-acquainted with her own physical urges long before the tour.  She even teaches Sandy to masturbate to thoughts of Farrah Fawcett.  Too soon.

The characters are already firmly established early as misfits, so there’s not much room for them to change as they’re exposed to fame, money, and drugs.  Without progression there’s no power behind the premise about young girls pulled from school to open for the biggest names in rock history.  Otherwise it just reads like a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode.

The soundtrack should be great though.