Whiplash

The creation myth of Charlie Parker recurs in Damien Chazelle’s furious film Whiplash, about the tense relationship between a young jazz drummer (Miles Teller) and his domineering, abusive conductor (J.K. Simmons). According to Simmons’ Terrence Fletcher, Charlie Parker was a would-be saxophonist until one night Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head. Laughed off stage, Parker cried himself to sleep, vowing never again to be humiliated — and a year later, he produced what the film calls ‘the greatest jazz solo the world has ever heard.’

It’s a cute origin story. We hear stories like that all the time, and we trade our own — short stories produced in twelve hours, stunning fashion constructed over a weekend of all nighters, practicing maths and music until our fingers bleed.

In Whiplash, writer-director Chazelle shoves the truth back at us. When the film begins, Teller’s Andrew is a first-year drummer at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory, the best jazz conservatory in the country. The first shot of the film slowly pushes in on Andrew as he practices alone late at night, and Teller is in every following scene. He sweats. He bleeds. He punches walls and drum kits and occasionally people, and Chazelle captures it all in repeated, often gruesome, close-ups. Teller’s been doing good work for a while now, but this is a new level for him. It’s the most intensely physical performance since Natalie Portman in Black Swan. By the end of Whiplash, Teller’s sweated through more than a couple shirts. I felt like I had, too.

It helps that J.K. Simmons is his partner in pain. The always dependable character actor might be best known for warm parts like Juno or authoritarian ones like TNT’s The Closer. Fletcher is a rebuke against those parts, a reminder that Simmons was once the loathsome reprobate white supremacist Vern Schillinger on HBO’s OZ. It’s as physical a part as Teller’s in its own way, as Simmons stalks across the screen in a black t-shirt and pants, conducting Shaffer’s elite studio band. If he’s not throwing chairs and slapping his musicians around, Fletcher’s flinging slurs and engaging in a whole different class of psychological warfare. Yet by the picture’s end, you understand where he’s coming from, perhaps even empathize with him. The lighting captures every line in Simmons’ craggy face, every flicker in his eyes. Even when he’s smiling at Teller, you’re waiting for his big white jaws to snap shut. This is a commanding performance that demands to be in any Oscar conversation this year.

Chazelle and his production team don’t just treat this like a great play. Working with cinematographer Sharone Meir and editor Tom Cross, the film feels musical, inspired by the jazz music at its center. The camera moves around its characters like notes in the air, and plenty of quick cuts emphasize the drumming at its core. It’s a virtuosic movie technically, all coming together in the film’s final fifteen minutes. Here, Andrew and Fletcher’s titanic battle plays out over a single performance, almost entirely without words. It’s marvelous.

Like any great psychological duet, you understand both Andrew and Fletcher by the end of Whiplash. Late in the movie, Fletcher explains that “the two most harmful words in the English language are ‘good job.’” That seems to be the central theme of Whiplash, and the film struggles to show the opposing side. Andrew’s father (Paul Reiser) comes off as doting but ineffectual. It feels like Chazelle shoved this in at the last minute. The film is much stronger when it’s committed to its thesis, its central truth.

That truth will stay with you long after the film’s over, and you might hear Terrence Fletcher’s voice the next time you’re facing down deadlines or a new class assignment. Whiplash shatters a generation of myth-making with a simple credo: This is what greatness requires. This is what it means to do a good job.

Whiplash. 106 minutes. Dir./Wr. Damien Chazelle. Perf. Miles Teller (Andrew Nyman), J.K. Simmons (Terrence Fletcher), Paul Reiser (Mr. Nyman). Rated R for strong language including some sexual references.