Whiplash is an entertaining look at obsession in the arts

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2015)

Whiplash Changes Tempo
Whiplash is a film above all about struggle, the struggle within ourselves and the struggle we have with the influences in our life: our family, our mentors and our artistic challengers. Andrew, played by the talented Miles Teller, is a young drumming prodigy, or is he? Is he the next Buddy Rich or Max Roach?
Andrew admires his mentor, Fletcher, played by J.K. Simmons. Simmons won an Oscar for the playing the megalomaniacal band leader who thinks he has the power to beat greatness into his students through abuse, name-calling, manipulation, lies, whatever it takes to be great. One big question left standing at the end of the movie is whether abusive teaching works for the most talented of artists, if it can make them that much greater.
Whiplash is a more dramatic and less smarmy look at the entertainment industry than Birdman. Whiplash doesn't beg for us to notice how clever it is at every turn, it's not predictable, and while we are not clear where the protagonists will go at the end of the film, it doesn't need to invoke magical realism and mysticism to be a mystery. Other than both being compound nouns and about the entertainment industry, the two films are world's apart.
Whiplash is not your typical film about an artist climbing to the top. Few films give so much time to the importance of mentorship in the artists' lives. Few films explore the obsession of the the art itself that leads one to desire to be "one of the greats." And the film isn't talking about the obsession of drugs and alcohol or some abusive family that leads artists to greatness. Like many artist we consider great, his obsession stems from his inner demons of not knowing what else he would do with his life without it and his insecurities in a world where the next guy on drums might be better. If he can't play like Elvin Jones, than what's the point? Unlike most of us who either aren't willing to do what it takes to be great or are content with what talent we do have, artists (athletes, scientists, writers ) who become the best have a different mindset. Whiplash lays that out for us to see in an entertaining form.
And when you think you caught the beat of Whiplash, it turns on us like modern jazz and ups the tempo. But it never plays down to us. Whiplash surprises with the plot twists and just when you think it goes to far, that it has played out, the key changes and leaves us wondering. Rating: Pay full Price
Peace, Tex Shelters