Kristen and Dakota premieres The Runaways (Updated)

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning bring rock n’ roll history to the red carpet premiere of their new movie, The Runaways held at the Eccles Centre Theatre in Park City, Utah. They were joined by Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, whom they portrayed in the biopic film.

Early reviews of the film has been good so far, praising Kristen’s and Dakota’s portrayal of the rock legends. Here are a few of them:

Cinematical:

Kristen Stewart steps out of her normal angsty girl act and nails down the punk rock, hard as nails Jett, and Fanning is equally as good with her disconnected portrayal of Currie, who is dealing with the fact that she’s abandoning her alcoholic father and her twin sister Marie (played as fraternal in the movie, although they were identical in real life) to embrace a life of rock and roll.

Powerful performances from Stewart, Fanning, and Shannon, and a song showcase that puts in bold what the Runaways were all about, while giving a bit of short shrift to the other band members. These girls were, for a very short time, the Queens of Noise. Fanning’s concert performance of “Cherry Bomb” will be ringing in your ears for days.

The Collider:

With fantastic performances from Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, The RunawaysNeon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story by Cherie Currie, The Runaways tells the coming-of-age story of the teenage rock band The Runaways and how they came together in the mid 1970’s.  Kristen Stewart stars as Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning is Cherie Currie, and Michael Shannon stars as the über-eccentric Kim Fowley – the man who put The Runaways together. delivered the goods at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  Based on the book

Again, the performances are fantastic across the board, and Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning really impressed me with their portrayals of these still-living rock stars.

jediyoda

Update: Here are a few more reviews of the film, both good and bad.

Hollywood Reporter Blog:

What can I tell you about Dakota Fanning? Two years ago, when she was 13, her character in the terrible “Hound Dog” was raped on screen. Now she’s a rocker having lesbian sex, smoking, drinking, snorting coke off the floor, wearing very hot lingerie because Currie was the precursor of Madonna. There may be some who are shocked by all this.

First Showing:

The problem is that Sigismondi really didn’t put any care or concern into crafting a comprehensive story. Nor did she put any care or concern into directing. And despite her photography background, it didn’t even look that great either (except for the concert scenes). I’m not sure if I thought it looked so bad because it was just a rough cut being shown at this festival or because I saw Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine right before this (and that was the most beautifully shot film I’ve seen in years). The best way to describe Sigismondi and her directing comes from Thomas Townend on Twitter: “Floria Sigismondi = good ol’ fashioned music video director – with the structural sensibilities of a spider on LSD.” I couldn’t agree with Thomas more!

New York Post

The film has a certain energy, but it’s a bit of an odd duck for a rock movie because the band never made it big (though Jett later would; her success is glanced at in a coda) and imploded before much happened other than cult success in Japan. The enthusiastic audience seemed to receive it as a female-power movie. Well, since the band members go heavy on the drinking and drugging and fighting (just about the biggest fight is a catty one, a dispute about who gets to be photographed for which magazine), their value as role models is not unquestionable.

Fanning gets the juicy part in the movie — her character is the one with the arc, turning from an ordinary shy suburban sweetie with a yearning to wear makeup like David Bowie and hang around cool rocks clubs into a sullen ego-monster who dresses in bustiers, thigh-highs and garter belts — but Stewart gets to indulge in lots of bad behavior too.

The most entertaining thing about the movie is that its writer-director, music-video veteran Floria Sigismondi (making her feature debut), has a sixth sense for how the Runaways were an image first and a rock & roll band second. Early on, we see Stewart’s black-shag-haired Joan in an L.A. boutique, where she has to coerce the sales woman into selling her a man’s studded biker jacket, which she wears as if born to it. Stewart’s no-frills, casually likable performance begins with Jett’s distinctive tough-girl saunter — which is to say, the actress knows just how to walk like a skinny dude. At the same time, we meet Cherie Currie (first name pronounced Sher-ee), who chops her platinum-blonde mane into a David Bowie shag, paints on the facial lightning streak from his Aladdin Sane cover, and lip-syncs to him at a high school talent show, which results in her being pelted with wads of paper.