Somewhere in The Runaways, the story of the pathbreaking all-girl rock band in the mid-1970s, are a few photons that were reflected off my daughter Aylia, who spent a day as an extra on the film. Sadly, those photons are indistinguishable from a blurry background. Nevertheless, the movie, starring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Runaways singer Cherie Currie, was an interesting an entertaining tale of an overlooked part of rock history. While Jett has continued as the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Currie has been in and out of music, done some acting, and has frequently been out of show business since leaving the Runaways in 1977. The movie is at least as much Currie’s story as it is Jett’s, and in fact is based on Currie’s autobiography, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story.

The young women of the Runaways are promoted by producer Kim Fowley, a flamboyant loudmouth who pushes Currie to flaunt her sexuality. While Fowley fantasizes about the Runaways being as transformative as the Beatles, as portrayed in the movie, he irresponsibly pushes them, exploits them, and foments controversy within the band. Not surprisingly, drugs become a major part of their lives. One wonders what might have become of the band had they had a producer like the Beatles’ George Martin instead of the narcissistic and irresponsible Fowley.

The movie is directed by Floria Sigismundi in her feature debut. Her inexperience shows perhaps in a general lack of sense of place or passage of time in the movie. When the girls are on the road playing concerts in dives, we don’t get a feel for where they are. On tour in Japan, it feels like LA with asian extras (the cars are shown driving on the right, unlike Japan’s left-side driving, for example). But she does an excellent job of capturing the mood of the girls, their band, and drawing great performances out of Stewart and Fanning.