Sounds awesome. What more could you want?!
The film is written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, “a striking woman with a mane of raven-black hair who was clad in a vampire-chic, all-black ensemble.” (You may know her as the director of such goth-tastic videos as Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” and Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.”) According to Lee, It’s not a band movie, per se, but: “an impressionistic character study illuminating a unique female predicament: What happens when teenage girls get handed too much, too soon via worldwide rock stardom?”
Sigismondi explains the concept thusly: “It’s young girls getting swept up into a world they couldn’t handle… Feeding on those confusing feelings that develop from moving from girl to woman, I could reach deep into myself to find those things.” There’s even some girl-on-girl action; Dakota Fanning, who plays Cherie Currie, makes out with Kristen Stewart, who plays Joan Jett, at a roller rink.
“In ‘Edgeplay,’ Cherie mentions that Joan is really good in bed,” Sigismondi said. “I thought, ‘I have to pry into this a bit. It will cause an explosion in the film. Why not go there?’ “
Not only is The Runaways a rocker-chick film directed by a woman, featuring two women who talk to each other about something other than a man (hence adhering to the Bechdel rule), it’s got Joan Jett’s approval. Watching Fanning and Stewart perform her music, was “surreal,” she says, “But I [had] a smile on my face.”
Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning Get Wild With ‘The Runaways’ [LA Times]
