Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.14.14
Hard-charging instructors, so the
theory goes, have a greater impact on one’s determination to succeed. As this
story’s band coach insists, during one of his rare quiet moments, no two words
in the English language can do more damage than a polite, “Good job.”
 |
| Fletcher (J.K. Simmons, right) is gentle with trainee drummer Andrew (Miles Teller) for about 15 seconds ... after which the young student quickly begins to fear his new instructor's dismissive gestures and increasingly impatient growl of "Not my tempo!" |
Ah, but at what point do aggressive
boot camp tactics become damaging emotional abuse? And, given the potential
goal, does that distinction even matter?
Such questions are at the heart
of writer/director Damien Chazelle’s riveting Whiplash, a fierce contest of
wills between a promising drum student and a vicious, perfectionist instructor.
Although Chazelle opens the setting up as much as possible, it’s often hard to
escape the impression that we’re watching a brutal, two-handed stage play; the
acting is that intense.
As the take-no-prisoners Terence Fletcher,
veteran character actor J.K. Simmons finally gets a well-deserved starring
spotlight: an opportunity he seizes with the ferocity of a shark going in for
the kill. Although Fletcher isn’t above physical violence, he’s much more
comfortable with mocking psychological warfare, with a shrewd eye for the
exploiting a victim’s soft underbelly.
Forever dressed in dark black,
Fletcher initially seems a well-meaning if needlessly profane purist ... but
Simmons quickly disabuses us of that mistaken impression. The inventive
complexity of his profane outbursts might make us chuckle, but it’s nervous
laughter at best. It’s all too easy to believe this guy capable of leaping
through the screen and ripping our throats out.
Put simply, Fletcher is a bully:
a deliberately cruel sociopath who excuses his bestial behavior on the basis of
artistic clarity. Simmons is so viciously effective in this role — so memorably
nightmarish — that it’s impossible to take our eyes off him. We cringe each
time he twists a hand into the clutched fist that signals his musicians to
stop, knowing that yet another verbal brow-beating is seconds away.
However impressive the result,
from the standpoint of galvanic acting chops, this isn’t a film to be
“enjoyed,” in the vicarious sense of the term. This is a nasty, debilitating
contest between director and viewer, much like the battle of wills raging
between the story’s teacher and pupil.
New York-based, 19-year-old
Andrew Nieman (Miles Teller), determined to become a world-class jazz drummer,
has lived and breathed music his entire life. Production designer Melanie Jones
deftly sketches the kid’s immediate environment: the black-and-white posters of
jazz greats; the books, CDs and DVDs of historic performances, many of them
featuring Buddy Rich; the ubiquitous drum kit crowding out otherwise Spartan
furniture.
As a means of furthering this
goal, Andrew has enrolled at the Shaffer Conservatory, a prestigious,
Juilliard-style music school where Fletcher conducts the elite studio jazz
band. Admission is strictly by invitation, and he often can be seen roaming the
halls, listening at doors, like an impatient lion. He eventually tags Andrew
and grants him passage into the fabled rehearsal studio as an unusually young
“squeaker”: a deliberately diminutive term for the “alternate” permitted solely
to flip pages for the “core” drummer.
Andrew naïvely assumes that he
has been given the keys to the kingdom, and has become Fletcher’s newest golden
boy. The young student magnifies this error by opening up during a surprisingly
mild private chat with his new instructor, little realizing that Fletcher is
merely gathering data on the young man’s psychological weak spots.
And, indeed, Andrew is laden with
angst. His hard-charging determination to succeed results, at least in part,
from the knowledge that his father (Paul Reiser) failed at a writer career and
“settled” for becoming a teacher. Father and son have a solid, loving relationship,
but that doesn’t include the rest of their extended family. Sunday dinners seem
an uncomfortable exercise in one-upsmanship, with Andrew constantly defending
his artsy academic career against cousins more profusely lauded for slighter
achievements at lesser schools.
But the downside of Andrew’s
monomania also surfaces here: a tendency to shun and contemptuously dismiss
“ordinary” people, in a manner that disturbs his father, but no doubt would be
recognized with glee by Fletcher. When questioned, Andrew cheerfully admits to
having no friends. Not good.
He nonetheless works up the
courage to invite a movie theater concession clerk on a date. That would be
Nicole (Melissa Benoist, immediately recognized as Marley, on TV’s Glee), who
accepts with nervous anticipation. She’s a sweet, obviously nice young woman;
we can only hope that her finer qualities might offset some of Andrew’s embryonic
misanthropy.
But back at Shaffer, Fletcher’s
impatience with Andrew’s supposed failings has blossomed into all-out war.
Thanks to a stubborn streak just as ingrained as Fletcher’s malice, Andrew
isn’t about to give up ... despite enduring abuse long past the point of
acceptable behavior on the part of any adult mentor, regardless of
circumstance.
We can’t help wondering, as this
psychological warfare escalates, why all the other jazz band students sit
silently: unwilling or unable to protest, defend one of their own, or walk out
in disgust. It seems ludicrous ... and yet media headlines never cease to be
filled with stories of institutional fraternity or high school sports hazing
behavior that never gets exposed until some poor kid finally dies.
And so we hope that the silence
from Andrew’s band mates merely reflects understandable terror, lest Fletcher’s
attention turn to them ... and not the resigned, perhaps even smug acceptance
of previous victims who, having endured their share of abuse, now feel it appropriate
for the new kid to take his lumps.
Relief, therefore, isn’t in the
cards ... so where can this possibly end? Who will win, and at what cost?
The punishing, toxic atmosphere
aside, Chazelle’s film also is thoroughly drenched with the filmmaker’s obvious
love of music, jazz and drumming. He never misses a beat: the frustration, the
tempo changes, the broken sticks, the constant rehearsals until the student’s
hands literally drip blood on the drum heads. Many of the studio scenes deliver
music only in fits and starts, thanks to Fletcher’s constant interruptions; as
a result, the exceptions — the extended performances — are deliriously,
rapturously triumphant.
The choices are solid, as well;
you’ll likely have Juan Tizol’s “Caravan” in your head for days, and the film
gets its title from a brutal Hank Levy time signature-mangling piece most
famously recorded by Don Ellis.
Although Simmons owns the screen,
Teller gives as good as he gets; he’s thoroughly persuasive as this dogged
young man, who endures the abuse and pursues the dream long past the point of
common sense or self-preservation. Teller’s exhausting, sweat-laden efforts turn
horrific: When Andrew plunges his bleeding hands into ice water after a
particularly grueling session, it’s easy to believe that Teller actually
injured himself. The drum work looks, sounds and feels that real.
As does poor Andrew’s descent
into despair and irrational resolve. Chazelle, himself a former young drummer
in a conservatory-style high school jazz orchestra, speaks (in his press notes)
with obvious chagrin of the moment when his involvement with music turned from
joy to outright fear: of missing a note, or losing tempo. His film is the saga
of music as blood sport: a studio-bound war where a successful performance
grants its players the exhilarating high of the soldiers who survived Omaha
Beach.
Teller delivers that elation,
that ferocity, that despair. He’s an extremely powerful young actor making good
on the promise already shown in Rabbit Hole (his big-screen debut) and last
year’s The Spectacular Now.
Reiser steers clear of his
customary stand-up tics and conveys a nicely understated glow of parental
warmth; Benoist is charming as the cute chick every guy would kill to meet and
date. Nate Lang and Austin Stowell stand out as fellow drummers callously used
by Fletcher as “cannon fodder” intended to further inspire Andrew.
This isn’t an easy film to watch;
it’s as emotionally battering as a well-mounted production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Those with delicate sensibilities — or
memories of similar abuse at anybody’s hands — are advised to steer clear.
And yet, as the lights finally dim
on Chazelle’s music-laden parable, we’re left with another intriguing question:
Must we worry about whether true artists are decent human beings, or should we
be content solely with their gift?
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