Whiplash

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Damien Chazelle/Starring: J.K. Simmons, Miles Teller, Paul Reiser and Melissa Benoist

The drive to be great; to overcome discouragement and self-criticism, as well as the criticism of others, might also be a lonely, solitary pursuit. But in director Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, the call to greatness might also mean having to overcome a mentor's furious, almost unscalable standards.

The story seems simple: a young student named Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), studying jazz drumming at a prestigious music school in New York City, encounters a teacher named Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), whose tough reputation is enough to make any prospective musician quake with fear and anxiety. But as the story unfolds, we see that the psychological pugilism between student and instructor is anything but simple.

Andrew is determined to be one of the greats; his bedroom wall photograph of jazz great Buddy Rich reflects his lofty ambitions. His love for jazz and his knowledge of the genre is extensive. On a first date with a young woman named Nicole (Melissa Benoist), he is able to identify the obscure jazz music playing in the background in his favorite pizza place.

Andrew makes it clear to Nicole and to everyone else his intentions to be one of the greats; even if it means being in exile from meaningful relationships.

When Andrew first encounters Fletcher, the young student is playing a drum-kit inside an empty room at the school. Fletcher hears him, then watches for a few seconds before Andrew notices the teacher and stops. Fletcher encourages him to play and when Andrew stops again, he notices the teacher is gone. The exchange, though seemingly innocuous, carries a whiff of foreboding.

After Fletcher steps into class to relieve a fellow instructor, he notices Andrew. Fletcher offers him fulsome praise by announcing to the gathering, "we have another Buddy Rich here," then invites him to join his advanced class the next day. Andrew is further encouraged by an exchange he has with Fletcher outside class when the instructor tells him in an amicable, benign way to have fun and relax. Feeling the flush of Fletcher's avuncular urgings, he joins the class in playing a jazz piece called Whiplash. But after a few stops, where Fletcher warmly chides Andrew for "rushing" his part, he stops, lifts a drum cymbal and hurls it at the young man's head, the young drummer manages to dodge it just in time. The stunned Andrew gapes at Fletcher as the enraged instructor shouts "Were you rushing or were you dragging?" Which is followed by a verbally abusive stream of threats and insults Andrew is ill-prepared to hear. The attack elicits a tear, which Fletcher seizes upon to offer more humiliating words. The abuse extends to the rest of the class in the form of homophobic slurs and homoerotic comments. Fletcher's vocal assault immediately called to mind R. Lee Ermey's rants in Full Metal Jacket for obscene intensity and psychological brutality.

As Fletcher's class prepares for a competition, his abuse withers the class into silence and anxiety and though Andrew receives his lion's share of the physical and mental venom, his tenacity to be great remains. His vigorous practice sessions leave his fingers, hands and drum snare bloody and puddled with sweat.

Andrew's drive to be exceptional takes its toll on his relationships. He tells Nicole his time with her is interfering with his musical pursuit while he vexes his cousins with his dismissive, pointed comments about what he feels are their mediocre, academic accomplishments.

When the jazz class is set to perform at another competition, Andrew is left to his own devices to secure transportation to the gig, which he resolves by renting a car. While recklessly speeding to the performance, his car is violently blindsided by a truck and rather than await medical care, he races to the hall, bloodied and ragged. He manages to arrive on time, but barely, much to Fletcher's exasperation and to the shock and dismay of his fellow musicians. The scene effectively conveys his manic drive and stoic intensity.

Fletcher's abuse continues, which leads to Andrew's self-dismissal from school and abandonment of his dream. Fletcher's classroom methods come to the attention of investigators, who prod a reluctant Andrew into making a damning statement against his former instructor. The investigation comes on the heels of the suicide of one of Fletcher's former students, who was apparently victimized and driven to the act while under his tutelage.

The final encounter between Fletcher and Andrew comes after a chance meeting on the street, where the resentful teacher and his former student share a drink. Fletcher invites Andrew to join his jazz band for a performance at a jazz festival; an event that brings their relationship to a head and tests the young musician's creative resolve.

J.K. Simmons, who is widely known as a character actor, is given his first chance to co-shoulder a film and he doesn't fritter the opportunity. Fletcher is a volatile nightmare, with his furious temper and unconscionable aggression. Simmons doesn't depict him as something otherworldly and malign, but someone human. His motivations seem very reasonable and sensible when he isn't hissing and baring fangs inside the classroom. Simmons always had range and depth, which he is finally able to demonstrate here.

Simmons's performance would be a soliloquy in an echo chamber if he didn't have Miles Teller to play off. Andrew could have been a self-pitying, doughy victim but Teller finds the fascinating nuance in the character; his prickly regard for his peers, his monomaniacal pursuit of his goal and his abrupt dismissal of everything that isn't drumming, evinced in his callous break-up with Nicole; a mistake he is later unable to correct.

Simmons' muscly biceps, bald head and intense brow make him an interesting physical adversary to Miles Teller; whose baby fat face and innocent, school boy eyes make for a visually arresting contrast.

But though Simmons and Teller mesmerize, the film has its glaring flaws. That Chazelle expects us to believe a professor's abusive classroom behavior would go unreported and unnoticed for so long is a bit much to ignore. But even if we overlook such literalism, that which is the film's strength is also the source of its greatest handicap. Though Simmons and Teller perform the hell out of Chazelle's script, so much of the drama is over-the-top and overly stylized. The R. Lee Ermey evocation bothered me too. What makes sense on Marine base seems comically hyperbolic in a classroom. I guess Chazelle wants Fletcher's story about a cymbal thrown at Charley Parker to make his behavior seem plausible and justified. Maybe it does but the film lacks subtlety. The violent, in-your-face-screaming robs the film of its psychological tension. In The Paper Chase, John Houseman's Charles W. Kingsfield manages to frighten and intimidate a classroom (and the audience) with his unnerving wit and intellect and his ability to wreck his Harvard student's self-esteem with the merest barb or insult. Fletcher's verbal bludgeoning is hard to take seriously after awhile and even in its most frightening moments, it's distractingly absurd.

I also found the blood and sweat more stylistic excess. I realize Chazelle wants to convey the violence and passion of creative expression, but the sight of so much blood and the deluge of sweat overstates and overpowers his message.

I think Whiplash is a terrific performance film, but as a whole, it doesn't work for me. It trips over its own ferocity. Even so, I would still encourage others to see it. It has some fascinating attributes. Teller's technical mastery of the drums is one such strength. Chazelle's film is hardly dull or silly; it has an energy surplus.

The cure for what ails Whiplash can be expressed concisely: more psychology, less psycho.