Whiplash

★★★★★ 

WHIPLASH, a film centered around a jazz band drummer, starts with a long drum roll. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but it did make me slightly bristle at the cliché. Thankfully, about 45 seconds into the movie, this was the last clichéd moment. The movie bowled me over and exceeded my expectations. The acting and the script are both essential to creating two great lead characters. Every aspect of the movie comes together in a thrilling climax that is one of the best movie endings I’ve seen in years.

J.K. Simmons is a great actor, and all of his praise is completely deserved. But Miles Teller steals the show and really anchors the movie. He fills up every minute of the movie in a breakout role that pushes him to the limits physically and mentally. Lead character Andrew destroys his body and soul in his quest to be the best drummer in history. You can read all of that on Teller’s posture, tone of his voice, and look in his eyes.

But did Andrew have a soul to begin with? That’s a more interesting question. Before he gets too far down the rabbit hole, he has a few scenes with his family and new girlfriend that suggests Mark Zuckerberg in THE SOCIAL NETWORK more than a hero we should keep cheering. He only gets the temerity to approach said girlfriend after getting a bump upwards in his drumming career. His happiness is not about forging relationships with people or making his parents happy, it’s only about his one passion - to be great.

Of course, the music is amazing. This isn’t too much of a surprise, since writer/director Damien Chazelle was a drummer in a similar band in high school. Despite drumming and jazz being central parts of the story line and every major sequence, the film is still incredibly easy to follow if you know absolutely nothing about music. It shows you how the world works and teaches you some of the terminology while still treating the audience as an adult. Andrew’s dad never asks “so what is tempo anyways?”.

The script is very suspenseful and surprising, but the film doesn’t really rely on twists. Everything that happens completely makes sense and it doesn’t take the characters on a 180, or even 90 degree turn, it just simply deepens them and makes them stronger. Simmons’ FULL METAL JACKET band leader of course has some moments where his guard comes down, where he shows emotions other than pure rage, but they don’t come off as cloying or token humanization. They also pay off wonderfully in the third act.

The ending sequence of the movie turned out to be everything I wanted and more. I have to admit that it was built up fairly strong in my mind by seeing countless tweets from writers, critics, actors praising it. It was simultaneously surprising, but also completely inevitable. The direction and editing is masterful, and features clever visual callbacks/echoes of previous shots in the movie. In a semi-empty theater, people around me all finally let out that breath they were holding when the credits started. And, of course, Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons are never better than their final scene together.

The next drum roll for WHIPLASH will likely end with- “and the Academy Award goes to…”