Whiplash

If you’ve never desired to be great – not good, but the best – you might not like Whiplash. Let the cries of outrage follow: “I can understand and appreciate from watching!” “I don’t need to do it to feel it!” Sure. Just like one can describe how riding a roller coaster feels by looking at it from the parking lot, right? Or understanding the power of a 15-foot cresting ocean wave bearing down on you while you kick for your life to punch through its collapsing face by standing on the shore. Or what mortal humiliation in the face of your dream delivered by the mentor you begged to serve, while you tear skin, bleed, alienate family and love, sweat, scream, are hit by an 18-wheeler and keep slapping the skins of a drum is like. 

Too much? That’s the fascinating water cooler discussion in this film. If you’ve ever wanted greatness, to be the unequivocal best at something, I’ll put my money on the idea that you say the methodology trumps the madness. And that’s where I landed, fascinated, terrified and tearing at my hair while watching this masterpiece.

It plays like a horror flick from the first frame – full with darkness and a slowly building beat, heart like a drum. The insides of our heads are attacked before our eyes get any sense of what it is we’re about to see. But once we do see, we close quickly on the object of the film’s appetite: greatness in the form of a young drumming prodigy named Andrew (Miles Teller). The hungriest predator from the outset is a music teacher at Shaffer Conservatory, the most prestigious music academy in the country, named Fletcher, played masterfully by J.K. Simmons.   

Andrew is the perfect student for Fletcher because of his own hunger. A teacher can only lead a student so far. The walls of the institution, the allure of what can be learned, fame, fortune and all else are mere carrots. The only way Fletcher truly succeeds with his maniacal drive is to meet obsession along the way. Andrew is that, as he tells his father, Jim (Paul Reiser) early on in the film that he doesn’t want to be good. The devil cannot enter the heart unless he is invited in. Jim responds to Andrew’s eschewing of the sweet Raisinettes he puts in the popcorn by saying “I don’t get you.” Jim, a writer who hasn’t sold but instead is, apparently, a gifted high school English teacher, is not the leader Andrew desires. Fletcher, who runs core at  Shaffer lays the bait and Andrew swallows the hook whole.

From that point forward, everything is a race. It’s all bait and switch and I’ll write no more plot as it would be far worse than a spoiler to give away the fascinating twists and turns of this dark ride. Although it would be an absolute shock it if actually won the award, Whiplash is my pick for the Best Picture of 2014.


Resonance Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0