Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (26 June 2017)

The demand for musical (jazz) excellence is melted with the extreme relationship between the student and the teacher. In this movie we are confronted with a situation between the will of the student to become an all time GREAT musician, ready to do everything for it, and the teacher who wants to discover the new Charlie Parker.
The great part about this movie is the psychological relationship between the student and the teacher, extreme and violent. It appears that the teacher seems sick-minded about his class, threatening the students not to bring his reputation down. You sometimes wonder how a student can accept this but it also seems like all the students admire him and especially Andrew (the student), and his ambition to be the very best makes him forget all the things Terrence Fletcher (the teacher) is inflicting on him.
The performances of the 2 lead actors J.K Simmons and Miles Teller are really special, a great psychological battle between theses two. We can really feel the tension and the ambition of each character in this movie. And, the realization allows us to see all the pain Andrew goes through.
In a more general way this movie puts in perspective the extreme demands and standards of the highest music schools and all the psychological pressure that theses youngsters have to deal with. Is it normal to allow this or does the path the greatness require this?