Whiplash

Damien Chazelle’s energetic sophomore feature Whiplash explodes onto screens with a dazzling one-two punch of youthful vitality and seasoned perspective. It’s an exciting fusion of genres: a coming-of-age drama, a musical-prodigy crowd pleaser, an inspirational teacher fable, a socio-political debate on how to best foster potential in young people, and even, in its own distinctive way, an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller. Miles Teller plays Andrew, a young jazz drummer enrolled in one of the country’s best and most competitive music conservatories. Andrew comes one step closer to his dream of achieving greatness when he’s invited to join the school's premiere ensemble, led by Terence Fletcher (the consistently terrific J. K. Simmons), a demanding maestro who subjects his students to extreme hazing rituals and mind games in hopes of finding a kid tough and talented enough to withstand the gauntlet. Andrew, Fletcher thinks, just might be the one truly great protégé he's been searching for, and he pushes him to the limits of both his drumming and his sanity, intending to break Andrew down like a marine cadet and then build him up into a master.

Like Simmons' fierce, unpredictable teacher, the film attacks the audience, instantly overpowering us with an unrelenting onslaught of sound, image, and emotion. In a year of lengthy, rambling, meditative pictures that seem designed to make us disengage from their narratives so we can contemplate their subtextual meanings as we watch, Whiplash is the rare film that confronts the viewer viscerally. It demands that we sit up, pay attention, stop thinking, and simply react to what’s happening on screen. Chazelle's screenplay and direction are polished and tight, with an efficiency and beauty that are almost musical, as befits the subject matter. The copious footage of musical performances and rehearsals never becomes repetitive, credit for which is due also to editor Tom Cross (who worked on Crazy Heart (2009) and We Own the Night (2007)) and cinematographer Sharone Meir (The Last House on the Left (2009), Mean Creek (2004)). 

With just nineteen days of filming and a modest budget of $3.3 million, Chazelle (a former student jazz drummer himself, whose only previous feature is the little-seen B&W 16mm musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009)), has crafted a perfect example of the exhilarating cinema emerging from contemporary young directors; small, perceptive, performance-driven pictures that deliver insights about the human condition. Much of the best work done by this current generation of filmmakers slips under mainstream audiences’ radar, crowded out by blockbusters playing on multiple screens. This film, however, seems like it will get seen by many, thanks to its protagonist (the young, charismatic Teller), its familiar, Breaking Bad-like dynamic (a bald older man barking harsh expletives at a skinny kid), and its near-universal acclaim from critics (which, in the case of small movies like this, still means something).

At the center of the picture are the two engrossing lead performances. Teller first appeared in 2010, as the teenage driver who accidentally killed Nicole Kidman’s son in John Cameron Mitchell’s underrated Rabbit Hole (one of the aforementioned small movies that never made it into the public consciousness despite Kidman’s star power and an exceptional screenplay), and he recently co-starred with Shailene Woodley in the splendidly acted coming-of-age romance The Spectacular Now (2013). In Whiplash, he delivers a harrowingly convincing performance; we feel Andrew's pain, both emotional and physical, as he strives to meet Fletcher's demands.

Simmons, who I've loved since I first saw him in Michael Apted and Tony Gilroy’s Extreme Measures (1996), has made an impressive career for himself as a character actor. His face and pate will be familiar to many from countless supporting roles--a far-from-exhaustive list of which would include Jason Rightman’s films Thank You for Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), and Up in the Air (2009), and the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies (2002, 04, 07). But I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play a lead before. Hopefully, Whiplash will do for Simmons what The Visitor (2007) did for Richard Jenkins, and we’ll get to see this fine actor play dozens of prominent parts in major films for the next decade. His Fletcher is spellbinding. I’m admittedly a sucker for characters who spew loud, nasty, offensive criticism at everyone in their path (and this guy makes Jack Nicholson’s misanthropic obsessive-compulsive novelist from As Good as It Gets (1997) look like Will Rogers!), but I think most audiences will have a hard time not falling under his captivating spell.

Grounding the film with much-needed compassion and perspective is Paul Reiser as Andrew’s father, a mediocre schoolteacher, failed writer, and general mensch who represents everything Andrew does not want to end up as. It's easy to forget how strong an actor Reiser is, especially in non-comedic roles; this is his best performance since the corporate villain he played unforgettably in Aliens (1986). Though Whiplash is essentially a two-hander, it would be much diminished without Reiser and Melissa Benoist, who plays Andrew's love interest. Their two characters are deftly woven into the narrative, providing breathers after the intense music-room scenes as well as context and counterpoint to everything that happens within that hyper-contained bubble. These brief glimpses of Andrew with his father and his girlfriend provide us with a window into his psychology and the affects of his interactions with Fletcher.

Chazelle’s economy in crafting a film with essentially four speaking parts is impressive. This is a writer/director who makes every character, every line, every shot, and every drum hit count. And while this film is more small combo than big band, it’s clear that Chazelle is a virtuoso conductor.