“So what’s Whiplash about?” – Oh it’s about a guy in a music school who wants to be a drummer…
Yea that doesn’t sell it well at all and the reactions I mostly get are “Oh… doesn’t sound like it’s for me.” and that’s an understandable reaction. It’s hard to sell Whiplash to people with a brief plot synopsis, you pretty much have to just say that it is *astounding* and one of the must sees in recent film history.
Bam… let’s begin.

Whiplash is another one of those rare treasures of which I had hardly heard a thing about until the last couple of weeks before release. I didn’t know director Damien Chazelle had already made a short based on his story for 2013’s Sundance and I had only briefly seen one trailer for it which had perked interest.
No it wasn’t until a friend of mine told me that Whiplash was making a storm in early screenings, stand ovations kind of storm, that I knew I had to go and see.

Describing Whiplash’s excellence to someone is very difficult, you’re trying to describe how it made you feel. You can’t really pull out a particular scene, line or character. It’s all about how the film builds and builds through until the final crescendo and that’s when you do find yourself almost standing up to applaud. The film is not only driven by Miles Teller in the lead role with his fanatical obsession of his craft but also J.K Simmons as Fletcher the music teacher who is an absolute marvel here.

Not to take anything away from Teller’s performance but Simmons is giving everything here, nothing is left in reserve and it is intoxicating viewing. It borders on humorous when he goes off on a rant but never goes so far to parody the film. The audience chuckles a little around you but they are also terrified of his brilliant menance. He perfectly encapsulates one of my favourite things, watching and listening to people who are truly great at what they do. The Oscars have made a few mistakes in the past, they got it right this time for Simmoms. Best supporting earned.

Whiplash does slow down a couple of times for father and son moments and when Andrew is trying to win the affection of ‘the girl’. Those little conversations between Andrew and his dad are a particular favourite. We see how his dad can’t seem to understand why Andrew wants it so much and in most other cases we the audience would be agreeing with his argument of reason. But the film so far has been directed so perfectly that even we aren’t seeing logical reason anymore.  They are welcome little changes of pace, to give us a breather and help us see the other side of Andrew’s life, a life it seems he is ready and willing to walk away from for the music. And that’s really the whole theme of the film, what do you truly love in life and how far you’re willing to go for it. Whiplash pulls no punches with this fact, there is no hero struggling with his choices cliche here, he’s focused from start to finish to the point of being cold and it’s so damn good to watch.

Whiplash stays with you, it’s been a few months now and yet I still wanted to write down some words about it. The ending is the kind that has you debate internally and makes you unsure if you’re happy for Andrew or not.

This review is grossly late so you won’t be able to catch Whiplash in cinemas but if you haven’t had the pleasure I urge you to rent it from your preferred streaming service.