WHIPLASH

Who would have thought that a movie about a young musician training to the the drumming world's equivalent of Charlie 'Bird' Parker could be this gripping but Damien Chazelle's "Whiplash", (it's only his second film and he both wrote and directed), works both as a study about a pupil/teacher relationship and as a film about obsession as well as being a superlative jazz 'musical' and it's a film that confounds expectations at every turn. Only once does it go slightly off the rails in a melodramatic sequence leading up to a crucial concert but it recovers from this blip building to an incredible musical climax in Carnegie Hall.

The pupil/teacher relationship is that between Andrew, a priggishly self-confident young drummer and Fletcher, his martinet music instructor. Fletcher's idea of teaching is to abuse, verbally and sometimes physically, his students until they do things his way. If they don't measure up, they're out. He's played by J.K. Simmons as the music world's equivalent of R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in "Full Metal Jacket" and at times you hope he might suffer the same fate. It's a career best performance from a great character actor finally getting his dues and almost certainly an Oscar. Andrew is MilesTeller and neither Teller nor Chazelle make him particularly likeable or sympathetic which is a nice touch; there are times you feel he deserves all he gets. A cosier actor would have made for a cosier picture and a less exciting one. When they go up against each other you feel at least we might have a battle of equals. Fletcher is a monster but he might also be a great teacher who knows he may have finally found his Charlie Parker. There's just enough of an edge to Simmons' performance for us to want to look for the man beneath the caricature just as Teller's Andrew is equally alienating.



Luckily, for such a blood-soaked saga, in a very literate sense, there is enough humour in Chazelle's excellent script to get us through the sticky passages, (and there are a few; there's only so much cymbal-throwing bluster we can take), and the almost wordless climax, including a nine minute drum solo, is as musically and dramatically riveting as anything in recent cinema. "Whiplash" may not be perfect but it's as near as dammit and marks Chazelle out as one of the best and most exciting young directors working today.