If you haven’t heard of Whiplash yet, do yourself a favor and look it up, OR, even better, go to the nearest theater playing it and buy a ticket. This is a movie that will definitely make my top 10 Best of the year list.
What Works: The plot seems deceptively simple as we watch a drumming prodigy played by Miles Teller (in a breakthrough role) join an elite music academy, and get “mentored” by a tyrannical music teacher played by J.K. Simmons (the role that should finally net him at least an Oscar nomination). [It’s okay if you don’t immediately recognize the names, but you’ll definitely know the faces.] But the movie’s real theme is greatness, and what it takes to be great.
The lead character has to re-evaluate every relationship (an unmotivated girlfriend, a family who doesn’t really get it), every spare moment, and every priority in his life to try to reach that elusive label of “greatness.” I was rooting for him to an almost absurd extent, and this may be the most invested I’ve ever been in whether a character can succeed at something that’s not life or death stakes, but “Whiplash” gets you to feel that—for people with a singular passion—it might as well be life or death.
And Teller’s subtly excellent work is matched scene for scene by a rattlesnake performance from Simmons, by turns tender, terrifying, manipulative, rueful, raging, thoughtful, and always tightly controlled. You don’t know if he’s really trying to find the next great musician or just an egomaniac who wants total control over someone. That question and the central question of whether Teller’s drummer has greatness in him or not aren’t answered until the very last scene, which is one of the most surprising, dramatic, funny, and thrilling I’ve seen this year.
What Doesn’t: Not everyone will like this movie, because not everyone can really relate to a search for greatness. [I watched it with a lukewarm Midwestern audience that didn’t seem to really “get it.”] This movie would feel sorry for those people.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Go…see…this…movie.