Whiplash TIFF Review

Stunt Coordinator

After playing at Sundance and Telluride, Whiplash has come to the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons, and tells the story of Andrew Neyman (Teller), an up-and-coming jazz drummer who'll stop at nothing to become one of "the greats", and his masochistic music teacher, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), who's notorious for pushing his students to their psychological breaking points.

From my review at TIFF:

Based on his award-winning short film, writer/director Damien Chazelle's Whiplash does for jazz music what films like Moneyball have done for sports, distilling the art form to a tale of pure blood, sweat and passion — with an emphasis on the blood and the sweat. For anyone who's ever sacrificed anything to pursue a goal, it's impossible not to identify with Andrew, even if the character takes his commitment to the extreme: practicing his drumming till his hands are raw and bloody, sabotaging his own relationship with his girlfriend (Melissa Benoist) because he anticipates she'll hold him back and even attempting to play after sustaining a seriously injury.

Playing a character who clearly marches to the beat of his own drum and never takes his eye off the prize, Teller gives a laser-focused performance that has the word "breakout" written all over it. But it wouldn't be nearly half as interesting without Simmons, in a role that sometimes seems to exist purely to tear Andrew down every time he's claimed a small victory. Simmons' machine-gun delivery of line after line of sarcastically scathing dialog commands the audience's complete attention every time he strides on-screen, and it's his interplay with Teller that gives the film its mesmerizing rhythm.

4 out of 5.

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