There is an astounding and intense story at the heart of "Whiplash"...

Rating: 10/10 (17 February 2015)

Teachers in films can be placed into two categories. On the one hand, you have your John Keatings (from Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society"), who are kind, think-outside-the-box teachers who unlock parts of their students minds and inspire them to want to do better. On the other hand, you have your Terence Fletchers, who is played here by J.K. Simmons, who are feared by their students and use this to get the results they're after. You could write whole essays on which teaching method is more effective, but right now the focus is on Fletcher, the monster who attempts to make Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) a greater drummer. This is the astounding and intense story at the heart of "Whiplash".
You can tell within the opening minutes of the film that Neiman is not cool. He doesn't have many friends, and he lives for jazz and playing the drums. We open with him alone in a practice room, playing and trying to get better. This is when he has his first encounter with Fletcher, who is brash and cold. He makes no attempt to be friendly, he merely sees what he wants and leaves. Over the course of the film, Neiman is invited into Fletcher's high- profile jazz band, where he is the victim of verbal abuse, psychological torment, and ends up with an intense drive to impress. If anything, he wants to impress too much, and reacts badly to Fletcher taking away the things that he's given him. 90% of the film is one long psychological trick on Fletcher's part, slowly turning Neiman insane. What makes the film so inspiring is that for the last 10%, Neiman takes his sanity back.
There are three elements at the heart of the film that make it so incredibly watchable and gripping. Firstly, the film is clean, classy and shot incredibly well. It has the colour scheme of a "jazz" film, and some of the camera work, such as the flicking between drummer and conductor or instrument close-ups, is inspired. Next, the music is crisp and catchy, with so much toe-tapping throughout. The parts of the score that aren't played on screen are just as good, all fitting in with the styling of the film.
But the most important element is made up of the two key performances at the centre of the movie - J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller are nothing but astounding in the film. In Teller's acting, you can see a real determination and desire to succeed. He brings across the awkwardness and lack of cool that the character has so well, and also his drum playing is pretty good. But it is Simmons who truly steals the show - Terence Fletcher is a terrifying, brutish, foul monster for the majority of the film, and simply would not be believable if he wasn't acted so well. The cursing and violence feels spontaneous, the coldness in his character seems to be so true, but I think it is the occasional signs of humanity (such as the discovery of a former pupil's death), which cement the character. He's not just a monster, he's another human who's been taken over by an internal drive. As much as Neiman's goal is to be one of the great drummers, Fletcher's goal is to cultivate one of the great musicians, something he believes he can only do through verbal abuse. His message is that "Good job" is never going to make anyone great, and he argues it so well that you do leave the film believing that.
It's possible to have read everything I've written so far and feel that "Whiplash" is going to be a tough 2 hour pain-fest, but it's anything but. It's quite funny in parts, due to the absurdity of many of Fletcher's comments, and you can't help but leave it inspired. As for its place in this year's Oscar race, it utterly deserves its place among the other "Best Film" nominees, and there is no doubt in my mind that it's one of the top contenders for that award.