excess

Rating: 8/10 (26 September 2015)

Genius is often attained at the cost of sanity, and/or dignity. Tough love is an outdated concept, but its necessity still lingers for some. In Whiplash, an ambitious, driven young man thinks he has found the mentor to take him to the top, but the teacher's methods become increasingly unhinged. Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons give outstanding performances that fuel this high-octane piece. Standards of sanity are never relevant here; it is all about how far you can go, how much you can take. Two strong personalities knock hard against each other with no give expected, till a conciliation, or symbiosis, emerges in the end. For me, the only plothole was the fact that Fletcher's violence came as a surprise. In every school there is a teacher who is fearsome and that earns them a reputation. Fletcher's 'methods' would have been the talk of the campus - for Andrew to finally gain entry to that classroom having heard nothing of Fletcher's violence and vitriol was a beat that badly deflated the narrative. That one gaping wound aside, this is a gripping, visceral ride of a film.