Good grief. I've never been in more dire need of a cup of tea than I was after watching the finale of Whiplash. It's more than just exciting, it's nerve-racking pushed to a physical extreme. I moved about in my seat, I recoiled, I bit my fingernails down to nubs. I might have wet my pants a little. It is, without question, one of the best bits of filmmaking released this season, and more than solidifies Whiplash as not only a worthy awards contender but a really, really good film.
Back-pedalling a little, this cymbal crash would mean nothing without its build-up, its drum roll, and it's in the same league as something Buddy Rich would play. It focuses on the relationship between drummer Andrew Neimann (Miles Teller) and fearsome music teacher Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), whose method of teaching his students is questionable at best, downright tyrannical at worst. When Andrew attends his first rehearsal with a prestigious college band he struggles to keep perfect rhythm, which prompts Fletcher to throw a chair at his head and publicly berate him.
Fletcher's philosophy is that his prodigies must be pushed "beyond what's expected of them" in order to become the next great musician. Andrew takes this to heart, and pushes himself to the very limit, literally drumming until his hands bleed. An effective sequence has him arrive late at an important jazz concert, only for him to forget his drumsticks. He drives back for them but, speeding at over eighty miles an hour, gets hit by a truck. Andrew crawls out the wreckage but goes back for his drumsticks and, such is his self-inflicted determination, stumbles on to play (badly) at the concert anyway. Being one of the greats ain't easy.
A lot has been made of J. K. Simmons' performance, him being the frontrunner for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and it's about time, too. He's been brilliant since Oz but is too often pigeon-holed into small character parts, gruff authority figures and practical everymen. But his Terence Fletcher here is a breakthrough, not just a R. Lee Ermey impression but a real, complicated, unpredictable character, who has the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. When he shows some genuine emotion over the death of a former student we think he's about to emerge as a compassionate human being, but then he forces the drummers at his disposal to practice until three in the morning. And Simmons makes it such an impressively physical performance, who communicates as much through his swift orchestral gestures as he does through his scathing put-downs.
In the main role Miles Teller is often equally impressive, equally physical, yet much like Ellar Coltrane, he's been completely ignored by the awards circuit. It's another example of effectively sweaty acting, where his face molds to a grimace of pain whenever he really gets into a drum solo. We don't always like him - he's pretentious, and dumps his girlfriend so she doesn't stop him being a great musician - but we always feel sympathy for his character, who discovers the hard way that having talent alone might not be enough.
In many ways this is an uncomplicated film, and I don't mean that as a slight in the least. It knows exactly what it's doing and it does it, with visceral, cinematic power. What more could you want?
★★★★★
