Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons and Damien Chazelle, welcome to Oscar season.
The stars and writer/director newcomer of “Whiplash” have created a bruising, anger-scarred music academy drama not to be missed. It turns the pursuit of a jazz career into a macho battlefield, the basis of a superbly edited film that leaves you surprised and a little stunned. Like the cutthroat salesman clashes of “Glengarry Glen Ross” or the Marine Corps nightmare of “Full Metal Jacket,” “Whiplash” is a psychodramatic portrait of men under pressure, revealing agonized cracks in character.
The setting is an elite, competitive Manhattan music school. The newest would-be star is Andrew (Teller, in a performance that makes most of his earlier roles feel like child’s play). He’s a drumming student as ambitious as he is inexperienced. We meet the freshman on his own, practicing in an abandoned rehearsal studio around midnight. Then he looks up from his frenetic pounding to see the school’s most awed and overpowering instructor, a ferocious jazz mastermind named Fletcher. Andrew freezes as Fletcher (cobra-fierce Simmons) growls, “Why did you stop?”
That encounter is the start of an antisocial tutor-pupil relationship that grows to a crescendo of two-way tension. Andrew, who dreams of becoming a percussionist as revered as Buddy Rich, knows that only Fletcher can mold his skills. He also learns firsthand how the demanding prof operates, by demoralizing his students and retraining them. Like legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight, he’s a nonstop tirade, throwing chairs at his players, slapping them numb if they miss “my beat” and demanding practice runs that send blood leaking from their wounded hands. He also creates performing genius in a world gone lax.
The title of “Whiplash” makes a big claim about its tone, and the film delivers it. As we approach the climax, each character is prepared to ruin the other. Their method isn’t physical violence. It’s something even more scarring, each sabotaging the performing plans the other creates.
