One of the very best films of the 21st Century.

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2018)

Teacher-student relationships have always been heavily romanticized in movies for years; the ability to inspire young minds to believe in themselves in order to accomplish great things is no easy task. As expounded on, a year before Whiplash, in Blue is the Warmest Color, we all want guidance, a mentor, in this unknowable world and we try to find that in various outlets; one of those being our teachers and educators. Damien Chazelle's sophomore feature Whiplash begins with Andrew (Miles Teller) coming to think he has found that person in the demanding, hot-tempered and never-satisfied force-of-nature that is enigmatic Jazz Band Conductor Terrance Fletcher (J.K Simmons). There is the old introspective exercise of listing the most difficult teachers to get through their classes, then listing the teachers you got the most out of when you were their student, most of the time with those lists coinciding with one another one-to-one. It speaks to the things that push our limits actually in fact come to define who we are.
Miles Teller reaches new heights as the the promising upstart Drumming talent enrolled at a Juilliard-esque University Conservatory music program. He can only see the castles in the sky for himself, he just needs to find a way to build the foundation to them. His turn in The Spectacular Now as the free spirited teenager Sutter, who gets a lesson in the school of hard knocks put him on the map, made him a talent to watch out for in the future. Here as Andrew; however, the actor is the very antithesis of the easy-going carefree teen in his previous movie. The guy knows what he wants and becomes incensed, doesn't let anyone get in the way of that and will do whatever it takes to get it.
J.K. Simmons, in the role of his career so far, plays Terence Fletcher, a jazz band director at a prestigious music school in NYC, who represents, in a sense, the darkest parts of our self-conscious. He hurls insults, screams with frustration, and even threatens with physical and emotional pain. He infuses doubt so that those who "have it" are separated from those "who don't", or at least from those who "can't take it". A little bit of Fletcher is in all of us, putting ourselves down when we lack the courage to do something we want to do, but don't have the nerve to act on.
If you have struggled to succeed and/or believe there is some grand purpose to your life that has yet to reveal itself, then you may find Damien Chazelle's fabulous Whiplash strangely revealing.