Queens of Noise

FANFAIR

THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAYS

The Runaways, a new film about the somewhat successful late-70s all-girl glam-punk band, is thoroughly entertaining even as it declines to shed any real light on the phenomenon, or offer much insight into the group members' highly carbonated psyches. Instead, the film, written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, settles for taking its audience on a lively sightseeing tour through L.A.'s musical underbelly, circa 1976—when boys and girls wore Britannia jeans and wanted to be David Bowie—while peddling the same peculiar mix of girl-power gumption and jail-bait tease as the original band. So, yes, on the one hand, it's nice to see talented young ladies finding their muses and making their marks in a man's world. And on the other hand, as my 13-year-old daughter asked, "Isn't that the movie where Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning make out?" (This question, to which the answer is yes, tells me the marketing people are doing their jobs.) Stewart, as guitarist and songwriter Joan Jett, scowls and pouts and rages with enough charisma and not quite enough interior life to suggest she might actually make a better rock star than actress; perhaps her gift is more for posing than for peeling her inner onion. It's Fanning, as singer and sexpot Cherie Currie, who gives The Runaways a center, her delicate features and big silent-movie eyes awash in a period-appropriate mix of come-on, vulnerability, and quaalude vacancy. For those of us who can remember listening to "Cherry Bomb" on the radio, it's a heady mix.

BRUCE HANDY