When determined young drummer
Andrew is spotted by a maniacal professor, his
passion for music becomes tainted by an obsession with becoming the best.
Andrew is at the top music conservatory in New York and is taken under the wing of the abusive Fletcher, soon finding himself as the core
drummer for Fletcher’s jazz band. With Fletcher using verbal, physical and psychological
abuse in order to get the best from his students, will Andrew be able to cut it
in the cutthroat business of competitive music?
Whiplash is a warped film
with an deliciously dubious message. J.K. Simmons is getting all the plaudits
for his performance with critics clearly as impressed by him as writer/director
Damien Chazelle is by his character. Based in part on Chazelle’s own feelings
towards his high school band instructor, there is clearly a complex love/hate
thing going on. It’s easy to see why, with Simmons being an actor it’s easy to
love, but in Whiplash delivering a terrifying performance that gets results
from his scared stiff students. The film ultimately justifies his completely
out-of-order antics, suggesting that an authoritarian, dictatorial and sadistic
stance can bring the best out of the little people. Lucky for the little people
that Miles Teller also smashes out a blinding performance as Andrew, a guy who
will go to bloody lengths to impress.
What is so strange about
Whiplash though, is that it almost completely forgets about the enjoyment of making
music. In the pursuit of perfection, the band members have become joyless
prisoners. Fletcher has them standing at attention like soldiers prepared for a
war. They clutch their instruments like their lives depend on them. Chazelle emphasises
all this by shooting and cutting the film with an urgency that should bring out
the rhythm and joy of jazz, but instead makes it feel like an edge of the seat
thriller, where lives are at stake.
Fletcher is a bully who gets
what he wants from Andrew by using any means necessary. Whiplash is a film that
strives for perfection and brings out the thrill in low budget, committed and
quick filmmaking having been shot in just 18 days. It is a film about the
sacrifices required to be the best at something, even if it means cowering in
front of a madman and losing the enjoyment in doing what you love.
Watch the trailer:
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