The Runaways

Jett, Currie and Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) were indeed children when the band started and were children by the time it broke up, though they did a lot of growing up in the meanwhile, most of it of the sordid, rock-star variety.

That may not be the most polite way to portray members of the band fronted by Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, played in Floria Sigismondi's film by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, respectively. But it is a word tossed around a lot by the fabulous (in a demented sort of way) manager of the group, Kim Fowley, played with scene-stealing gusto by Michael Shannon. And why would not it be? They put the band together with that in mind.

The young Jett wants to rock, but she is told at every turn a variation on the same thing (and told outright by her music teacher): Girls don't play electric guitar.

With the exception of gender, it is the standard story, : Children from broken homes don't fit in but find their purpose in rock and roll. It is the ultimate method of outsider inclusion; plug in and play, and you are finally a part of something, even if it is something that exists outside most people's experience.

But Jett does, and when he spots Fowley, decked out in eyeliner and a dog collar at a nightclub, he tells him so. Sensing a kindred spirit, Fowley gets Jett together with other musicians. But they require a singer, preferably blond and willing to get wild onstage. If she is wearing lingerie when that happens, well, so much the better. Singing talent is optional.