Miles Teller plays Andrew Neiman, a drummer who dreams of making his living in the rhythm section of a jazz orchestra. Buddy Rich is his idol. Andrew is no slouch on the skins, immediately drawing the attention of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the imposing, muscle-bound headmaster of Shaffer Conservatory. Year after year, Shaffer turns out some of the world's finest star musicians of the future. A lot of Shaffer's reputation is a result of Fletcher's exacting standards. But at what price are those standards tolerated?
Fletcher is into mind games, many bordering on mental cruelty. Fletcher is keen on embarrassing students in front of the entire studio band, which is the ensemble at Shaffer in which the best musicians play. When he dismisses a plump trombone player, the ensuing verbal attack includes harsh criticism of the young man's musicianship as well as his weight. He derisively calls a demoted drummer "Mr. Gay Pride of the West Side." When Andrew confides in Fletcher regarding Andrew's rough childhood, Fletcher uses that against Andrew publicly minutes later. The musicians are treated like pawns, some brought by Fletcher into the studio band for the sole purpose of making incumbent players think they are about to be demoted. He relegates some students to the job of being merely page turners for the musicians deemed superior. The ultimate insult is to be labeled a permanent page turner.
Writer-director Damien Chazelle is quite good at setting tension-packed moods throughout the story. The viewer never knows when Fletcher is about to explode in a tantrum. Chazelle's script is not as successful in its attempt to paint Andrew as a likable normal college-age kid. His relationship with his girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist), never seems on track, and his dinner table conversation with his male cousins is totally out of character. Of course, you can't have a movie about a jazz academy without a terrific score; I have no complaints there. (By the way, the film is named after the title of a tune heard frequently both in rehearsals and on the performance stage.)
The last act of the movie is triggered by a sad piece of news announced earlier by Fletcher to the studio band regarding a former Shaffer student. We don't think much of it at first, but everything is not as it seems.
Unlike the fake singing, piano playing or horn blowing we might see in a lot of films, it's pretty difficult for an actor to convincingly pretend to be drumming. Therefore, a huge tip of the hat to Teller, who obviously is a skilled kit man in real life. But the scene stealer in Whiplash is clearly Simmons. With his sculpted torso and bulging biceps, he commands attention whether by intimidation or credentials. I would not be surprised to see Simmons nominated for an Oscar as a supporting actor.
We often hear about college and professional athletes who decide voluntarily to quit their sport while still in their prime and in relatively good health. The reason most often given is that the game is no longer fun for them. After having seen Whiplash, one similarly wonders what musicians have to bear to achieve a career in music. Is burnout a strong possibility because the fun is missing? Whiplash raises another question too: How many musicians had the talent to be successful performers and entertainers, but were left at the wayside because of personal discouragement suffered at the hands of an instructor?
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