Both exhilarating and exhausting

Rating: Null/10 (11 September 2015)

This is not a film with mass appeal - there are no super-heroes or car chases or special effects - but the discerning viewer will find it a cinematic treat. The title alludes to a piece of jazz music but it might as well describe the tongue of Mr Fletcher (J K Simmons), teacher and conductor at a top New York music academy, whose lacerating comments on the efforts of his charges literally result in blood and tears. The prime focus of his teaching - or torture - is 19 year old Andrew (Miles Teller), a drummer in Fletcher's elite band. Teller gives a fine performance but Simmons is simply stunning in a career-best showing in a lifetime of acting mainly in television (it deservedly won him an Academy Award).
The movie was both written and directed by Damien Chazelle, who at school wanted to be a jazz drummer and had a tough music teacher, and it is a feature length version of an award-winning short film of the same name. The plotting is quite thin but this is not a slow work - the rehearsal sequences, which are the core of the story, are sharply cut and well shot. What gives the narrative some complexity is that Mr Fletcher's appalling behaviour is a consequence of his own failure and could be seen as well-intentioned, while Andrew's willingness to take so much abuse and punishment is the result of his all-consuming passion to be the best. A prolonged drum solo at the end is a tour de force that seems to make it all worth while - but you'll end up feeling exhausted.