[Trigger warning: This article includes a discussion of suicide.]

Fair bit of spoilers for the movie ahead. If you have any interest in watching the movie yourself, go do it now and come back. 

Whiplash (Sony Pictures, 2014) stars J.K Simmons and Miles Teller as a hard, vulgar, and abusive teacher, and his new star student. The movie grapples with the question of how hard teachers should be on their students, and how much work it requires to be “one of the greats.” It is undeniably a good film; however, its structure and scale seem to alienate its audience. 

The main selling point of this movie is the antagonist, Terrence Fletcher. His crass and abusive behavior (every other line of his contains a swear word) calls into question the validity of his teaching methods and whether he is being too hard on his students and band members. However, early into the movie, after a few demonstrations of how degrading his behavior is on his pupils, we are told a story by Fletcher about one of his students, Sean Casey. Accompanied by a sample of Sean’s saxophone playing, Fletcher recalls his time with him and in a rare moment of mercy for him, praises his playing, even seeming to tear up a bit. He then reveals that Sean had died in a car crash. Fletcher’s tears almost demonstrate sympathy, until minutes later he’s back into viciously insulting his band members. It is later revealed in the story that Sean committed suicide, caused by depression and anxiety that started after his time with Fletcher.  

Fletcher’s foil is Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller. Andrew is an aspiring jazz player who, upon a seemingly lucky encounter with Fletcher, is invited into his band. There he experiences his barbaric methods of motivating and teaching his students, firsthand. Despite this, Neiman stays. Determined to be “one of the greats”, Neiman forgoes relationships and his own health in order to practice harder and harder, all to gain the recognition and respect of Fletcher. The movie repeatedly shows Neiman’s self-inflicted injuries being bandaged as his practice drives his hands to be bloodied and his body to be drenched in sweat, all caused by his drive to be a legendary artist.

While Whiplash’s small-scale plot may alienate many and possibly make it hard to be invested,  it is still a wonderful film and has been recognized as such. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the characters described here and their dynamic with each other.