The Runaways

Actress Kristen Stewart tries to prove that she is more than just the love thing for a tug-of-war between a vampire and a werewolf. She tackles the life of a teen rock band.

I did not know anything about the band The Runaways before this film. I only knew about Joan Jett from her song 'I Love Rock And Roll' because it was one of the first rock songs I remember becoming a fan of when I was young. It is a very surprising and interesting story. I was very surprised at how easily the band came together. It seems that all that happened was Joan Jett approached record producer Kim Fowley and asked to form an all girl rock band. He said 'yeah sure' (not those exact words but you get the idea) and so they start the group. The real struggle comes with the egos that develop and how the band copes with trying to stay together. In some ways this is the typical story that develops, where one or maybe two band members get a bit too egotistical and caught up in the hype of being popular. The problem here is that these are very young girls and so things get a bit weird when they are sexualised by the media. While it is quite disturbing, I'm not surprised it happened. These girls did not have much supervision from what is portrayed in the film, so naturally they are going to get up to all sorts of trouble. As it is the film is a fascinating look at a very young all girl band and how they cope with success.

As we all know Kristen Stewart has been in a very successful franchise the last couple of years. But before that she was in other films and was quite a good actress. Here she proves that she can be more than just Bella. The 'Twilight' series is not something that is going to stretch her acting all that much so she needs to do films like this to actually prove herself. I think she is excellent and all those Bella fans should check her out. Dakota Fanning on the other hand is excellent in everything she does so it is no surprise that she is excellent here. She is certainly growing up a lot. The real surprise is Michael Shannon. He is brilliant in this film. Lets hope the film's distributor puts a push behind him as I can see him getting an Oscar nomination next year.

An excellent look at a rock band that I think most young people would never have heard of. It also gives you a chance to see Kristen Stewart in something different.