Whiplash Review

Release Year: 2014

Director: Damien Chazelle*

Runtime: 107 minutes

The question of when fixation or motivation becomes unhealthy obsession is not only addressed in Whiplash, but thoroughly explored and put on display. This movie is incredibly immersive and everything that happens to protagonist Andy Nieman feels like the viewer’s own experience.

Following an aspiring and eventually obsessing drummer, the narrative of Whiplash feels like it could be quite niche unless the audience members are artists or students, but at the core of Andy’s strife is the hungry desire to find identity. The people he admires most are the people who can embody artistry to such a powerful, iconic extent that the simple moniker “Bird” carries weight that is more than heavy: it is inspiring, it is exemplary, it is great. Andy wants to be great, and this is the main conflict of the film. His identity must be rooted in something and he has chosen his passion for percussion.

This conflict is established by the quickly introduced but later developed character Fletcher, who runs the band with which Andy hopes to perform. Fletcher is portrayed by the masterful actor J.K. Simmons in a performance that is unforgettable in the truest, most haunting sense of the word, and reaffirms him as one of my all-time favorite actors. Every bark of hatred and commandment that he fires at his students surges through the movie and into a real, genuinely generated sense of fear and worthlessness. A kid with an obsession with being great is the hopefully unstoppable force that meets the terrifyingly immovable object that is a band conductor who sees greatness in no one. Such a dynamic is the personification of perseverance against adversity, and Andy’s dream suddenly does not feel that unfamiliar anymore.

Whiplash does not let it all exist in black and white though, as Andy does not perfectly embody strength and one cannot help but wonder if Fletcher is entirely discouraging. The two characters battle with the prospect of inspiring the other’s personality in their own selves, but this is a frightful possibility for Andy, whom the viewer does not want to see fall into the abyss of hopelessness Fletcher’s instruction creates. Without spoiling the movie’s specific events, the narrative does display for the viewer exactly what Andy sees as a worthy sacrifice for greatness, and it is not as hard-fast to root for the underdog as it would have been if he did not place his entire identity into this pursuit of greatness. The viewer has Fletcher’s questionable motives up in their face, and then Andy’s motives are worth examination themselves.

Exactly how Andy ends up at the movie’s end with regards to his pursuit of greatness, I will not prematurely disclose. Just know that the movie captures every painstaking step Andy takes to get there, in a manner that is excruciating, raw, and cinematically beautiful. Whiplash may be a drama, but it has the tension of an action thriller, the intimacy of an artistic romance, and the intrigue of a modern mystery. It coarsely but effectively speeds through all of these realms, giving the viewer a sense of the whiplash Andy’s journey entails, and the harsh unexpectedness that exists in life.

*one of my favorite directors