There have been plenty of films about artistic torment and the rocky mentor-student relationship that often leads to success. But it has been some time since we鈥檝e seen a mentor as maniacal as Terence Fletcher in Whiplash.
Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) is maestro of an elite jazz ensemble at the lauded (fictional) Shaffer School in Manhattan. He plucks 19-year-old Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) from the obscurity of his college class to participate in his band. Andrew starts out by turning pages for the 鈥渃ore鈥� drummer, but it isn鈥檛 long before he gets his chance.
First, Fletcher gives him a little pep talk in the hall. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e here for a reason, you believe that, right?鈥� setting him up for a huge come-down. The insults start flying, immediately: Fletcher introduces Andrew, the youngest member of the band, with a sarcastic 鈥淚sn鈥檛 he cute?鈥� He uses information about Andrew鈥檚 family to belittle him further.
Fletcher 鈥渕otivates鈥� his musicians by calling them 鈥渞etard,鈥� 鈥淓lmer Fudd鈥� and 鈥淢r. Gay Pride of the Upper East Side.鈥� There are religious slurs, fat jokes and creative sexual insults, starting with telling his band that they鈥檙e playing 鈥渁s flat as your girlfriend鈥� and extending to places we can鈥檛 print here. All in the name of pushing his artists to be better. His goal, he confides at one point, is to cultivate one of the all-time talents.
Fletcher鈥檚 theory, that kid gloves never produced great artistry, has merit. 鈥淭here are no two words in the English language more harmful than 鈥榞ood job,鈥欌�� he says. It鈥檚 the reason ballerinas, gymnasts and Heisman-trophy winners have historically put up with behaviour the rest of us would find intolerable.
But Andrew takes it, getting demoted and promoted, and enduring physical and verbal abuse beyond limit. He wants to be like his idol, Buddy Rich. 鈥淚 want to be great,鈥� he says, before correcting himself. 鈥淚 want to be one of the greats.鈥� To that end, relationships 鈥� with a would-be girlfriend (Melissa Benoist) and with his only friend, his dad (Paul Reiser) 鈥� just get in the way, as far as Andrew is concerned.
The put-downs continue at home over family dinner. Dad is a failed writer teaching high school English, an indignity that Andrew refuses to repeat. The boys at the table 鈥� third-tier football players and school debaters 鈥� all get more kudos round the dinner table than Andrew, whose chosen career is seen as a hobby and a certain path to heroin addiction and early death.
The band makes the rounds of jazz fest competitions, playing Hank Levy鈥檚 鈥淲hiplash鈥� and, memorably, the entirety of Juan Tizol鈥檚 鈥淐aravan,鈥� first performed by Duke Ellington.
There are blood blisters and open wounds accompanied by copious bleeding on the drum kit, and gallons and gallons of sweat.
Andrew hits rock-bottom and Fletcher gets his due. Fletcher鈥檚 revenge is a sweet surprise, as is Andrew鈥檚 last-act solution. Unrealistic? Maybe. But we are mesmerized by the symbiotically destructive relationship between teacher and student, nonetheless.
The film is based on Damien Chazelle鈥檚 18-minute short (also starring Simmons) which won the Short Film Jury Prize at Sundance. 聽
It鈥檚 a magnificent character study in a perfectly trim 106 minutes. (Editing by Tom Cross is fantastically efficient, often cutting to the beat.) No extraneous personal-history scenes: we don鈥檛 require a complete background on these characters to appreciate their motivations and the people they become as soon as they set foot in the rehearsal studio.
The performance is a triumph for Simmons, who will never be called 鈥渢he dad in Juno鈥� or 鈥渢he Farmer鈥檚 Insurance Guy鈥� again. And if The Spectacular Now wasn鈥檛 enough to announce Teller鈥檚 graduation from comedic roles (21 And Over, Footloose), Whiplash screams that the actor has arrived. Amazingly, Teller reportedly did all his own drumming in the film.
Chazelle and director of photography Sharone Meir even manage to make the mundane intense: reed preparation, case locks snapping, bloody band-aids all carry weight and menace when shot in close-up. That鈥檚 nothing compared to the tight shots of Fletcher screaming inches away from his student, spittle flying, and Andrew drumming as if his life depended on it.
The title is fitting. I walked away from Whiplash with a headache. Not because of all that pounding on the drums but because of the tension, which never lets up, not for a second, not for a paradiddle.
Whiplash opens Friday at Fifth Avenue Cinema.
