Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1616791/film-review-whiplash-multilayered-drama-about-jazz-drummer-and-his
Magazines/ 48 Hours

Film review: Whiplash is a multilayered drama about a jazz drummer and his mentor

Miles Teller in action
WHIPLASH
Starring:
Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser
Director: Damien Chazelle
Category: IIB

 

Incandescent light bulb inventor Thomas Alva Edison believed that genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration. The way that Terence Fletcher, the volatile music instructor who electrifies proceedings in Damien Chazelle's Whiplash seems to view it, though, genius can only come out of the shedding of copious amounts of blood and tears as well as sweat.

As played by J.K. Simmons, Fletcher is the teacher from hell who seems like he wants to break his charges rather than get them to make the most of their abilities. Sure, there are moments when he reveals a soft side — but one can never be sure if that's just a ruse to get personal information to taunt people with later on.

The audience will inevitably sympathise — or empathise, if they too have had experiences of being bullied by people in positions of power — with Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), the 19-year-old first year student at the fictional Schaffer Conservatory of Music who Fletcher singles out for some particularly punishing attention.

This even though the driven jazz drummer doesn't come across as the nicest guy in the world, especially the way he treats his erstwhile girlfriend Nicole (Melissa Benoist).

The expanded, feature-length version of a short film made a year earlier begins with sounds rather than images, and the increasingly frenzied beating of drums is heard before the camera zeroes in on a young man energetically playing an extended drum set that marks him out as talented and passionate.

Teller and J.K. Simmons
Teller and J.K. Simmons

It's established from the start that Whiplash will feature lots of music and movement. The film's writer-director demonstrates his musical knowledge by using Don Levy's Whiplash ("the song I hated the most because it's ... designed to screw with drummers," Chazelle says) and Duke Ellington's Caravan.

He also knows how to drive home the point that producing great sound requires hard work and considerable ability.

But it's the human drama that stems from the protagonist's desire to become "one of the greats" — like his hero Buddy Rich (whose performance of Birdland Andrew repeatedly listens to) — which makes the film so mesmerising, along with brilliant performances by its two main actors.

Teller, who took on the drumming student role inhabited by Johnny Simmons in the 2013 short Whiplash, makes the part his own. He provides an eye-catching portrayal of a determined youth willing to torture himself to avoid the mediocrity that he perceives in others, including his caring teacher father (Paul Reiser).

But J.K. Simmons, as the mentor-tormenter, steals the show. He gives Terence Fletcher many layers of complexity, and ensures that Whiplash's outcome is less predictable and more interesting than it otherwise would have been.

 

Whiplash opens on October 16