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Created Dec 07, 2012 09:44PM PST • Edited Sep 01, 2013 10:44AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Quadrophenia stands on its own from Quadrophenia, the Who’s great rock opera from whence it sprang. For starters, the movie’s considerable spoken dialog means it’s not an opera. And while many of the album’s songs are used, not all are and they’re augmented by a few created for the movie.

   Differences aside, it’s a great movie on its own merits, telling a coherent story about a mixed-up kid from East London in the mid Sixties. As with the album, his beautifully tragic story strikes universal chords of recognition for anyone who grew up in post-Elvis Western civilization. Never mind that British youth culture once included rival gangs of Mods and Rockers, and that speed was the drug of choice for Mods. Kids from L.A. to London had similar experiences, allowing the movie to travel over time and distance.

   Quadropheniacs like me go further, viewing the movie as a dream come to life after a youth spent endlessly listening to the album. Oh that music! The soundtrack impelled me to crank the TV remote up to 100. Interestingly, it’s only about half Quadrophenia, the rest being contemporaneous songs from 1966, including My Generation all the way through, along with tracks from the Kinks, the Ronettes and others.

   Quadrophenia would ideally be viewed as a pair with the excellent documentary Quadrophenia – The Complete Story from earlier this year. Together they’d make a double dose of anguished rock brilliance.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Phil Daniels brings Pete Townshend’s alter ego Jimmy to life – the long face, Roman nose, awkwardness and edgy demeanor. Not surprisingly, Daniels went on to play many a cockney character on British TV and in the movies, including a stint on Eastenders.

   His Mod buddies evoke other members of the Who. Philip Davis, in particular, looks like Roger Daltrey.

   Leslie Ash is fetching as the girl Jimmy fancies himself with, while Garry Cooper cuts a dashing figure as her boyfriend and then reveals his dirty job roots as a welder by day.

   Sting famously lent his superstar self to the production as Ace Face, the Mod ideal who is later revealed to be – you guessed it – a bell boy. Always running at someone’s bleeding heal…

   Ray Winstone ably plays Jimmy’s childhood buddy who is now a rocker. Whoops. Winstone would go on to play the heavy in countless movies.

   Toyah Willcox is crazy sexy as a mod girl who wants to shag Jimmy.

   Finally, a tip of the hat to Kate Williams and Michael Elphick as Jimmy’s Mum and Dad, who finally kick him out of the house, dear things.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Frank Roddam’s film opens with the plaintive lyric “Is it me for a moment?” while the camera flies over the sea … and any Quadropheniac is smitten.

    The soundtrack and story make clear that Quadrophenia was a love letter from Pete to fans of Pete, or to be more kind, from the Who to Who fans. It’s about a canonical Who fan from 1966 who is off his rocker four different ways, each corresponding to a member of the Who.

    The film is also a devastating critique of soulless consumer society, then or now. For instance, it mocks advertising but follows it slavishly. When Jimmy the Mod shares a cigarette with Ace Face, it plays exactly like a commercial. Thus were a Mod band like the Who in the thick of the Pop Art movement.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Everyone’s oblivious to each other, brilliantly showing the ennui that can so easily consume people in a media-driven consumer society.

    The story is a classic tragedy, damn near Shakespearean, what with Jimmy clearly heading for a crackup. Thus his Mother is completely right with what she says when kicking him out, even if it is one of the last straws in his downfall.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

    John Entwistle produced the soundtrack, notably moving Pete’s guitar into the background and moving his own bass to the fore. Passive aggressive, huh John.

    About the three Who songs created for the movie: none is up to snuff with those from the album.

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Found the really cool poster above – Jimmy on a GS Scooter, wearing his wartime coat with his hair cut neat

    Quadropheniacs will recognize many scenes in the movie as being eery recreations of pictures from the booklet that accompanied the album.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Lots of drunken brawling and amphetamine-fueled craziness. Perhaps the harshest elements are the nasty things an out-of-control son says to his Mum and Dad, and what his distraught Mother says to him in response.

    Oh yeah, there’s a splash of full frontal nudity. Male. Very mod, that.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Brutal 2.7

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Youths running riot were unheard of in ’66 though are apparently commonplace nowadays in British cities, with Friday and Saturday nights routinely ending up as drunken melees. Thus Quadrophenia is as much a foretelling as a time capsule.

    While the story is fairly universal, the fact that the kids spurn a work ethic marks it as distinctly non-American, at least during the mid Sixties.

    Finally, young males having motorized transportation is an essential fixture in rock and roll stories. Gotta be able to ride off to where the action is.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Glib 1.3