A Powerful Film That Anyone Can Relate To

Rating: 9/10 (19 November 2016)

First thing to know before reading this review: I am not a fan of music, I have never seen the appeal of it and have never been a musician, but despite that I loved this movie, mainly because it's not just a movie about music, it's a movie about a man trying to find his place in life and everything that gets in his way. The way in which this film explore, dreams and ambitions is what makes this movie relatable because we've all had passions in our lives, things we've wanted to achieve and the way this film addresses that is beautiful and allows us to get behind the main character more. Miles Teller as Andrew in this movie gives the greatest performance of his entire career, not only is he excellent in the drumming scenes but he was also great at portraying his characters drive to be the best and his inner demons and struggles. But really JK Simmons performance stole this movie. Simmons won The Academy Award For Best Supporting Actor for this film and I've seen few performances more deserving of such an Honor, he's absolutely terrifying in this movie, but he doesn't just rely on some quick dialogue and one liners to carry his performance, the character is also a deep one, while you never agree with his actions you understand why he goes to such extreme lengths to motivate his students. I also was surprised at how much I loved the romance in this movie, the love story is a way for us to see how much drumming is effecting Tellers character and I also thought Melissa Beniost was really good in this film. You wouldn't think it but this movie is incredibly intense mainly because of Simmons amazing performance but because you understand the stakes of getting every note and key right. Few movies have had a more perfect ending than this one, the stakes are high but thanks to the perfectly developed characters and everything coming full circle the physiological warfare that goes on between these two characters comes to a perfect and satisfying end that left me in amazement. I only have a few flaws with this film and is mainly some of the minor characters they're just horrible people for no reason and tear Andrew down just for the sake of it and they could have been given more depth.
Whiplash is a fantastic film, it does everything perfectly from a performance and character perspective and has a great way of appealing to anyone who has ever had any kind of ambition and I think this film will one day become a classic.
A/92%