WHIPLASH
DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle
CAST: Miles Teller, JK Simmons, Melissa Benoist
RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes
CLASSIFICATION: 16L
RATING: ****
Whiplash is one of those films referred to when critics tackle the Oscars for only selecting nominees from the least-watched films. It shouldn’t be seen as a negative, neither should Still Alice, but they are.
These are tough movies to watch because they deal with issues prevalent in the world today. And yet, while they are lessons and do broaden our knowledge on a specific subject, they also take us to the humanity of a society trying to deal with a scourge which seems to be part of today’s stress-ridden existence.
It’s not that it’s only a male thing, but especially in the past decade, it has become much noisier amongst that gender – bullying. Call it by different names, but that’s what JK Simmons’s Fletcher is, a bully.
He rationalises his methods, his needs, and his dreams for his chosen musicians time and again. But watching from the outside, the director shows how much of what he displays is driven by his own inability to deal with trauma on a day-to-day basis. Hearing about the suicide of one of the talents he thought he had pulled through, his distressful disappointment turns into a bloody clash with three of his drumming charges.
The film starts with a drum roll which runs into an almost manic crescendo that warns you this is not another laid-back jazz movie. Once you walk into the music rehearsals with a group of choice musicians and see their dour faces, you know this is not what making music should look like, not even at the worst of times.
It’s what this story points to. All the arguments that those who are hard on others are battling mediocrity pale into comparison when most of their conquests are obliterated in the process.
It’s about knowing your truth, especially for the young drummer (strong performance by Teller) at the centre of this story. He has all the right credentials for the maestro to pick on. His mother left when he was three, his father is someone who didn’t quite meet his potential, too ordinary and too nice, and the son has turned into a compulsive achiever who has to be not only great, but one of the greats.
He pushes this to extreme as he rejects a relationship with a woman who would have been by his side all the way. But he cannot see this.
In steps Mr Fletcher, a man who hasn’t achieved his own dreams but believes he can push others to do exactly that. But what if he takes them too close to the edge? That’s the road the director and his cast travel and it’s shocking but reality-based stuff, told in a manner that has your jaw dropping for both the acting and musical skills. It is, after all, a movie about jazz musicians and there’s quite a bit of playing – gloriously so even if you’re not an aficionado.
With a majestic performance, not relenting on the intensity for even a nano-second, Simmons deserves all the accolades rolling his way. All around, it is a film and a story that never lets up. But that’s exactly how bullying must feel for those who suffer the consequences.
This movie thunders like an emasculating mirror held to a society that helps provide the motivation or your charge/partner/children/ parents won’t get there.
If you liked The Great Santini (from the past) or Precious (more recent), you will like this one.