The popularized aesthetic of the middle finger

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2010)

Initially, this movie seems like the type of joke people paste on message boards called "What's the worst idea for a movie ever?" "How about a movie about The Runaways featuring the chick from Twilight as Joan Jett and that one little girl from How the Grinch Stole Christmas as Cherie Currie?" Hahahaha--oh.
However, let's consider a few things first. One, I hear down the grapevine that Kristen Stewart takes Twilight about as seriously as the guys who made Vampires Suck. However, it's a job that provides her exposure and money. Secondly, with Hound Dog, Dakota Fanning pretty much announced that she intends to be a serious actor and not next year's forgotten childhood star television special. This movie makes a bad marketing decision by playing out of typecast, but the stars make a good marketing decision by playing out of typecast. This makes the relative success or lack thereof of this movie at least somewhat interesting. Here is an opportunity for these two actresses to break out of type.
But back to step one. We're talking about a movie about The Runaways. People who want to see movies about The Runaways want punks, rebellion, and disestablishment. However, this is obviously a commercial film. Those who want to see a nice movie featuring the innocent Bella Swan or cute-as-button blond girl from yesterday don't want punks, rebellion, and disestablishment. So the movie is kind of set up for failure before it even starts.
Okay, so, that said.... how is it? To be perfectly honest, it's pretty charming. Stewart and Fanning get to strut, lurch, scowl, and slouch their way through that world of popular youth angst that, ironic as those subcultures really are, at least are refreshingly angry and passionate in light of that new form of commercialized teen depression, emo. It features sex, drugs, and rock and roll without editing or shying away from any of those three concepts (especially incredible considering the leads' ages). And the movie is a straight-up old school underdog story that gives every fourteen year old sneaking into a club hope that they'll get discovered by a record producer just because of the devil-may-care 'tude on their faces and tee-shirts. It is everything romantic about the rocker aesthetic, where even the negative things such as drug abuse and band conflict is part and parcel of Musician's American Dream.
Thing being, of course, that it's no Almost Famous. This is all familiar territory, the rise to fame, the fall from grace, psychedelic breakdowns leading into junky rock soundtracks as the hospital scenes start stacking up and the stars stop having so much fun scene to scene. What it does have is a lipsticked Michael Shannon having fun as producer Kim Fowley, Fanning in Lolita chic, girls helping girls figure out how to get off, and yes, cinematography with wide angle lenses, hand-held moments, slow motion, saturated colors, club lights reflected off rain on taxi windows, everything set to rhythmic rumblings of electric guitar--you know, rock and roll. Yeah alright: underneath all the streaking eyeliner and angry expressions is something arguably quite vapid; but then again, that's kinda what rock and roll is, full dedication to acting out and getting fame and admiration for it.
It is, in the end, a well-produced and delivered form of the genre, and audiences' enjoyment of it will probably be directly correlated to their interest in the concept. For me, more than anything, I saw it purely out of curiosity to see where Fanning and Stewart are going. From what I saw, somewhere good, even if it is set up for too-cool-for-their-own-old-school hipsters to hate it on principle.
--PolarisDiB