Whiplash

Whiplash is a drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle. Before producing the feature, Chazelle directed a short film based on his script which went on to win the Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons, who played the same role in both Chazelle’s short film and feature versions of Whiplash.

Andrew Neiman is an ambitious young jazz drummer, single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher, an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods, leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band, forever changing the young man’s life. Andrew’s passion to achieve perfection quickly spirals into obsession, as his ruthless teacher continues to push him to the brink of both his ability — and his sanity.

Whiplash is based on Chazelle’s personal experiences as a jazz drummer and the pressure he felt to be the best. “As a young drummer in a conservatory-style high school jazz orchestra, the emotion I felt the most frequently was a different one: fear. Fear of missing a beat. Fear of losing tempo. Most overwhelmingly, fear of my conductor. With Whiplash, I wanted to make a movie about music that felt like a war movie, or a gangster movie — where instruments replaced weapons, where words felt as violent as guns, and where the action unfolded not on a battlefield, but in a school rehearsal room, or on a concert stage.”

You can read our review of Whiplash here.

Whiplash is rated 14A.

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