Saturday 22 May 2021

‘Quadrophenia’ Turned The Who’s Mod Opus Into Coming Of Age Tale … But Is It Any Good? asks Benjamin H. Smith from Decider's Cult Corner

 


No songwriter has ever captured the combustible mix of teenage fury and frailty as well as The Who’s Pete Townshend.  The band’s violent interplay and interpersonal relations transferred through to their music which vibrated with energy. Tough guy singer Roger Daltrey brought Townshend’s lyrics to life but the characters residing within them were as wounded and confused as they were defiant and angry. For every, “Hope I die before I get old,” there’s a, “No one knows what it’s like, to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies.” The 1973 concept album Quadrophenia was the full flowering of this impulse, chronicling the ups, uppers and downs of a young mod. It is arguably the band’s finest work and in 1979 was turned into a feature film, which is currently available for streaming on HBO Max, Tubi, The Criterion Channel, and more.

Quadrophenia the film follows its source material closely, perhaps too closely. The year is 1964 or ‘65 and main character Jimmy Cooper is a young mod from working class London. He works as a gopher at an ad agency and spends his meager salary on custom-made suits, amphetamines and customizing his Lambretta scooter. Jimmy is played by British actor Phil Daniels, who positively inhabits the role, appropriately ebullient or taciturn as his moods ebb and explode. As per the album title, Jimmy is schizophrenic, “a bloody split personality,” in the words of his father. Really, he seems more bipolar than schizophrenic but Bipolarphenia doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

Like legions of teenagers and young adults before him, Jimmy strives to fit in but ends up on the outside. In being a mod he thinks he’s being “a somebody” but only feels joy when he’s following the crowd, whether it’s riding with the pack or rumbling with rival “rockers,” leather-clad ’50s fetishists who ride actual motorcycles. Ironically, Jimmy’s childhood friend Kevin, played by a young Ray Winstone, is both a rocker and his own man, unconcerned with the street politics that should divide them. When Kevin gets jumped by mods, Jimmy runs off, unwilling to stick his neck out for a friend. As throughout the film, he ends the night despondent and alone.   

Jimmy lusts after Steph, played by Leslie Ash, but is too shy to dance with her. They later journey with a phalanx of mods on scooters to the English seaside resort of Brighton. There, they encounter top mod “Ace Face,” played by a pre-douchenozzle Sting, and battle gangs of rockers and the police. Jimmy and Steph escape the melee and have awkward sex in an alleyway. Afterwards, Jimmy is arrested and shares a paddy wagon with Ace, who offers him a cigarette. He thinks he’s top of the world but his high won’t last.

Back in London, Jimmy loses his home, his job, his girl and his standing in the gang in short order. “It seems like everything’s going backwards,” he says to Steph, who’s already moved on to one of his friends. “You sure it’s not you that’s going backwards?,” she responds. He speeds off and is almost run over by a mail truck. “You killed me scooter!,” he cries. With nowhere to go, he dons his best mod finery and returns to Brighton, the only place where anything ever made sense. Of course, he’s as alone as he ever was. After seeing his hero Ace working as a lowly bellboy, he has an existential crisis, steals Ace’s scooter and drives it off the White Cliffs of Dover. We know from the opening scene, he jumps off at the last moment. 

Quadrophenia is essential viewing for any fan of The Who or anyone interested in the mod subculture. Counting myself a fairly big Who fan, I’ve seen it multiple times but have never considered whether or not it was a good film. In truth, it would have benefited from not following the original plotline so faithfully and trying to shoehorn in as many Who references as it could. While the first half of the film is a compelling coming of age tale, it unravels in the end, devolving into little more than a music video, letting the album’s songs replace scripted dialogue to explain what’s happening. Though Quadrophenia is among my favorite albums, and the film is beautifully shot and worth watching, I still can’t help pondering how much better it could have been.

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician.

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