Quadrophenia (1979)

I knew little to nothing about the 'mods' and 'rockers' of Swinging Sixties London and the fierce rivalry that bristled between them before going into the film, but Quadrophenia, Franc Roddam's film based on The Who's rock opera of the same name, completely immerses the viewer in their world. The images I tend to conjure of this important era in Britain's history is that of The Beatles running from a screaming crowd of ecstatic girls in A Hard Day's Night (1964). While Richard Lester's film has the fortune of being made at the time this movement was thriving, it's light-hearted fare, albeit a terrific one.

Quadrophenia doesn't pull its punches, and portrays the mods, in particular the young, alienated Jimmy (Phil Daniels) in all of their rough-and-tumble, amphetamine-popping glory. Adorned in the latest fashion and riding around London on his customised scooter, Jimmy funds his lifestyle by begrudgingly working as a post room boy for the kind of stiff-upper-lipped types he loathes. Outside of his job, he is a living nightmare for his parents, constantly out all hours listening to rock music with his friends and popping blue uppers to keep him on edge.

He is romantically invested in Steph (Leslie Ash), who is currently involved with another chap, but after he does finally sleep with her, he discovers that the experience didn't have the same lasting effect it did on him. Jimmy also learns that his friend Kevin (Ray Winstone), fresh out of the army, is a rocker and therefore an enemy. A sense of alienation builds inside of the protagonist, with only the sense of belonging within the gang and cheap drugs to help drag him through his depression. It all builds up to a visit to Brighton where, along with super-cool mod Ace Face (Sting), meet up for a huge brawl with a gang of rockers.

Backed by a terrific soundtrack from The Who, Quadrophenia recreates a fashion craze now long-gone, and does so convincingly with a real sense of time and place. Jimmy and his gang are all working-class, slumping through dead-end jobs to fund their lifestyle in spite of their humble upbringings, infusing the film with a sense of social- awareness. The group show no desire whatsoever to fit in the social structure of a society they feel is unfair, with Jimmy in particular feeling left hung out to dry. But the most impressive aspect of the film is the young Phil Daniels as the raging tearaway whose character often treads dangerously close to being plain loathsome. He plays the role with an irresistible charm and swagger that make him entirely sympathetic. An underrated cult gem.

Fmovies: First, as you perhaps can tell by my name, I'm a die-hard The Who fan and have been for a long time. Listening to the original Quadrophenia rock opera is almost a religious act for me. I also have to add that I was born in 1984, and the sixties for me are some kind of paradise perished forever. I had to wait several years after listening to the album before seeing the movie. During the first half hour, I was disappointed how few of the music was in it, but then the movie began to fascinate me by itself, it really dragged me in. This is mostly due to the great Phil Daniels. It is his portrait of Jim that really keeps the film alive. He *is* the mod of the sixties, he shows in every single scene why they were mods and why it couldn't last. The other actors also do a good job, nothing spectacular, but solid. Sting is entertaining, too. There are several changes in the story compared to the "Quadrophenia" CD booklet, but they make sense and work well. It would have been interesting to stay still closer to the rock opera, but, regarding that, when the movie was made, more than a decade had passed since the time depicted, it is understandable that the movie makers wouldn't want to go totally "musical" as in the pathetic "Tommy" film. "Quadrophenia", in my opinion, is better than "Tommy" because the story isn't torn to pieces and then mixed with tons of whatever they had left on the cutting room floor; it is a coherent line of events with the songs put in in the right moment (except, perhaps, for the divine "Love reign o'er me"). Over all, the movie really thrilled me. It is a very good adaptation of the rock opera, but also a great youth film in its own right. Call it cult if you don't like it, it has deserved it.

This is a fabulous movie that goes far beyond the usual one-dimensional teenager- struggles-with-society's-conformity tale. In it, the main character, Jimmy, has got a good job but which seems pointless to him. He's a member of a posse of "Mods," a mid-sixties image- group that included quasi-Beatles-style clothes and haircuts, the use of Vespa scooters, and of course sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Jimmy hates the conformity as symbolized by his TV-watching, emotionally-detached parents and dreads the prospect of becoming an ice-cold working stiff. Bus as time passes he begins to squirm in the conformity imposed by being a Mod, a conformity so ruthless it costs him a friendship.

Everything that seems to be a key to happiness, whether it's romance with Steph, a beautiful member of his posse, or taking part in a kind of "Mod Woodstock," or adoring the "King of the Mods" (played perfectly by Sting), or even just trying to escape it all aboard his trusty Vespa, becomes a dead end of conformity.

Throughout the movie, his frustration is building, and he can't figure out why. In the end, he finally realizes the source of his anguish, and, without giving anything away, addresses the heart of the matter.

Excellent performances in this movie (though the accents will be downright impenetrable for some viewers), great directing, strong writing, and of course it marvelously portrays the Mod lifestyle. All the groups shown in the movie can be taken as symbols for just about any community you could think of.

Best of all, the soundtrack is superb. Unfortunately, you can't really get the sense of it just watching the movie, so pick up the CD if you like The Who; it's one of their very best.

Overall, a must-see.

Quadrophenia fmovies. As the years have wore on, Quadrophenia has broken free of tagged cult classic status to emerge as a bona fide candidate for best British youth movie ever. The iconography of its main protagonist has subsided to let the core sensibility of the movies theme shine thru, this is pure and simple a perfect depiction of fallen youth during a heady time, a tale of ones ideology crumbling so sadly over the course of one weekend.

The period is captured vividly by director Franc Roddam, the stark threat of violence mixed in with the best music the 60s had to offer, serves to let the viewer feel they were there at the time, and the result is a perfect period piece. The story follows Jimmy {a tremendous Phil Daniels} on a voyage of discovery that is funny at times, yet also very sadly tragic, and for anyone who was once a teenager searching for identity and purpose........ then this film will have maximum resonance.

Wonderful 9/10.

I'm almost finished reading Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" and have been listening a lot to the Who's original double album of the same name so the time was right to finally watch the big-screen dramatisation of the record. I'm just a bit too young to remember anything about the vicious Mods v Rockers pitched battles at Brighton or the Mod lifestyle (I'm not sure just how far north it made it up to Scotland, it always seemed to me principally a London-based movement).

Nevertheless, the broader themes in the film of the generation gap between teenagers and their parents, the pain of rejection, youthful revolt against authority plus the less intellectual need for young kids to get drunk, drugged, violent and sexed up are universal and seemingly constant, which with the background of great 60's music, made for an engrossing and enjoyable if occasionally challenging watch.

This is Phil Daniels' Jimmy Fenton's worm's eye-view of life in the mid-60's, working in a dead-end job, out of touch with his parents and although on the face of it, there doesn't appear to be much to rebel against, sure enough, he loses his way and his mind as he suffers rejection from his employer, said parents, would-be girlfriend Leslie Ash and after seeing his Mod Hero '"ace-face" played by Sting, meekly conform to society mores carrying bags at a hotel, he gets pushed over the edge (literally). His only way out of the tormenting feelings he's experiencing for the first time sadly involves just a one-way ticket.

The film adopts a realistic, warts and all approach, with no let-up in the levels of bad language used, scenes of drug use (although it is "only" pill-popping "uppers" or "blues" as they're called in the film) and of course the centre-piece of the film, the recreation of the infamous Mods and Rockers "Battle Of Brighton" of 1965. There's some earthy humour though to leaven things, particularly when two Mods encounter in the dark a bunch of sleeping rockers, although one or two stray elements of sentimentality (Jimmy's heart-to- heart with his long-suffering dad, his friendship with an old pal turned rocker) slightly jar. Fan as I am, I could have also done without the too obvious genuflecting to the film's producers The Who (Jimmy putting on the "My Generation" single at a party, then gazing in awe at the band on "Ready Steady Go"), I guess he who pays the piper and all that.

Central to the movie is a superb performance by Daniels as Jimmy, his mood-swings oscillating violently as he takes or comes off his pills, wired to the moon as we say today. His energy and vividness set the tone for the whole film. Interestingly director Franc Roddam (later the creator of "Auf Weidersehn Pet" and, ...er "Masterchef" on TV), changes the ending and placement of songs from the album, but there's no denying the memorable climax to the piece.

In the end I was transported not only back into the era depicted, but more importantly into the head of "helpless dancer" Jimmy and would state that the movie well complements the great album The Who originally released, a rarity in "rock" movies.

Franc Roddam, the director of Quadrophenia, did not disappoint me with his interpretation of The Who's rock opera (unlike Tommy, which had it's moments but didn't was all over the map so to speak). He lets a viewer, who may not be entirely familiar to what occurred between the mods and the rockers in the early to mid 1960's Britain, in on what the energy, the attitudes were like among the young and old. It's not even classifiable as a rock opera as a film, because it becomes a hybrid- it's part motorcycle flick, with some well staged, intense fight scenes, rumbles, riots, etc; it's part anti-establishmentarianist take on what it's like to be at an age when you don't know what to do you with your life, and outside of the pleasures of being with friends and kicking' ass you tend to be aimless or work for people you don't like. It's also, major in fact, a psychological character study of one of these anti-establishment kids, a mod named Jimmy (Phil Daniels), who may be a little off balance in the head due to a fueling desire to be both with the excitement of his gang and with his need to find himself by himself, as well as to the "blues" pills.

There isn't as much of a story as there is character development, which sticks true to the source material, written by the clever and driving force of The Who, Pete Townsend. As Jimmy goes through parties, fights, a little love with a girl (Steph, played well by Leslie Ash), a riot, and problems with his parents and job, he enters a downward spiral. This is a tricky sort of story and character to pull off, because lay it on too thick and the audience could see the character as naive (and perhaps the character is, which makes sense in a sense), but add on the toughness and one-dimensional side of the biker attitude and it becomes a B-movie motorcycle flick. This doesn't happen.

Somehow the elements come together in the film, with the performances (by the way, Sting's debut performance is both mysterious and, ultimately, kinda funny), the documentary-style direction and editing (by Brian "Trainspotting" Tefano), and the music. The Who themselves serve as musical directors, and it's highly interesting for both Who and non-Who fans in how they choose only parts of songs sometimes (Punk and the Godfather, Dr. Jimmy) and leave some out completely (Sea and Sand, Drowned, two songs I hoped would've made the final cut). By the time the third act reaches it's heated peak, the music starts to perfectly embody what the character's going through. It also doesn't come off as cheesy due to the power of the songs.

Maybe I might be a little biased in writing this review- when I was around seventeen, eighteen years old, this was my favorite album behind Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced. Besides it containing some of the Who's most daring, somber, and fun work (5:15, Bell Boy, I'm One), the story was something that I could identify with strongly, as its themes are very knowing of what it's like for any guy at that point of crossing the bend from childhood to adulthood. Not to mention it rivaled Tommy in its ambition via the compositions, the entertainment value, etc. So I was almost hesitant to watch the film, as I thought I might have my expectations raised too high and it would be too loosely translated and made as not my kind of rock musical (i.e. like Tommy). For me, the experience was contradictory to what I thought- I ended up learning more about this atmosphere, the