Whiplash

Poor Miles Teller, he’s so damn good in Whiplash that it almost feels cruel how completely stolen the movie is from him. Telling the story of a quiet student who dreams of becoming one of the world’s premiere drummers, Whiplash offers up a juicy supporting role to a great character actor. And you can figure out why I say that the movie is completely stolen out from underneath him.

Yet Whiplash is so great not just for the chance to watch J.K.Simmons tear the screen up, always a good excuse for anything in my book, but to watch the unconventional mentor/teacher harnessing a promising young pupil into greatness tropes get harshly twisted around. Simmons’ musical instructor will use any means necessary to get what he wants from his students, and most of his means are various levels of psychological, verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. Mr. Holland’s Opus this is not.

It’s not that Simmons’ instructor is abusive that upends and destroys the clichés in this sub-genre, it’s also that our lead is obsessive and armed with tunnel-vision to the point of self-destruction and madness. He pushes away all distractions, including the possibility of a young-love romance with a pretty college girl, because they might distract him from achieving greatness. We have met a student who will happily take the abuse, even dish some out of his own, if he thinks it will get him to greatness. Teller never flinches away from making his character a bit unlikeable, frequently an asshole.

And the greatness of Whiplash dovetails into the climactic scene in which the mentor/student square off. It’s a power-play, at first intended to completely embarrass and derail the student, before he recovers his courage and head-first charges back into the fray. Simmons finds a way to make every movement and choice brimming with the threat of violence and musical. His staccato speech patterns feel like the jazzy instrumentation that he loves and teaches. The volcanic violence he displays his frightening, but even more unnerving are the quiet moments in which he threatens to blow at any given moment. This “by any means necessary” thought is a brief glimpse into the monomania required to achieve greatness, to nurture it, and this final square off is an intense and prolonged debate about whether or not his actions have lead to a prized pupil transcending. The film never answers the question, but I couldn’t help thinking about it afterwards. I’m not entirely sure what my conclusion is. I just know I want Simmons to win the Oscar.