Where Perfection Is the Standard and Grace Is in Short Supply

Last updated on: October 17, 2014 at 5:58 am by Christian Hamaker

Where Perfection Is the Standard and Grace Is in Short Supply 2014-10-17T05:58:19-06:00 Christian Hamaker

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Review of Whiplash, Directed by Damien Chazelle

Watching Whiplash, the new film from writer/director Damien Chazelle, you may feel, for a time, like you’re experiencing déjà vu. An aspiring talent—in this case, a jazz drummer named Andrew, played by Miles Teller—delights when a revered teacher (Terence Fletcher, played by J.K. Simmons) takes him under his wing. The mentor challenges the student to do more than he ever imagined he could, pushing the student to the point where respect gives way to frustration and alienation before setting for begrudging respect.

Sound like The Karate Kid or one of the mentor/student stories that tried to mimic that film’s success? Sure, but Whiplash doesn’t strictly follow the same playbook. It goes its own way—to a darker place, or to one that at least leaves viewers pondering the disturbing undercurrents of what, at first blush, might be considered a feel-good story.

Fletcher, a jazz-band instructor at an elite music conservatory, inspires his students by settling for nothing less than perfection. Those who find themselves in Fletcher’s good graces can just as quickly find themselves cast off for the next Fletcher-discovered prodigy, or relegated to the role of page-turners for his “core” performers. Worse, Fletcher berates some of the students who fall short of his standard—perfection—with profanity-fueled, in-your-face diatribes.

And yet, the most unsettling aspect of Whiplash may be Andrew’s complicity in the abuse inflicted upon him by Fletcher. In that, Whiplash will remind viewers of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes—a tale of an artist (in that case, a dancer) driven mad by the demands made upon her by a teacher.

While not as expressionistic as the Powell/Pressburger masterpiece, Whiplash is, from its opening moments, a film fueled by the jazz music that is the passion of its main characters. Starting with the beating of a snare drum against a black screen, Whiplash blossoms into a story punctuated with scenes of ensemble performances and extended solos. At its best, Whiplash becomes a music-fueled reverie, with camerawork that is insistent and exploratory without ever overwhelming the material and taking us out of the story. More challenging, the film is also a profanity-dominated portrait of a driven man who believes the way to get the best of out others is to belittle them, and of the student who (mostly) accepts the twisted parameters of the tutelage he so desperately craves.

Why does Andrew accept such abuse? He wants to be the next Buddy Rich, and when, early in the film, Fletcher recognizes his talent, Andrew sees an opportunity to achieve his dream. He has no other great interests beyond drums and music. Sure, he works up the courage to ask out the concession-stand worker (Melissa Benoist) at the theater where he watches movies with his father (Paul Reiser), but his conversations with both tend to drift back toward his chief passion: music and drums.

Whiplash hits some familiar beats as Andrew casts aside family members and romantic partners in pursuit of his dream of being a great jazz drummer. Yet the film manages to compensate for its familiar story arcs with the energy of its soundtrack and a conclusion that stops short of demonization, and which offers no easy takeaways. Whiplash recognizes its protagonists’ pathologies while refusing to settle for simple lessons about what it takes to succeed. Instead, it exhilarates even as it troubles, and that tension is what makes the film special. To minimize Fletcher’s fury or to focus only on Andrew’s talent is to compartmentalize the film in ways that make it easier to digest but also too pat—like the formula films Whiplash emulates to a point, but then exceeds.

Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart” (Col. 3:23), and Ecclesiastes encourages us, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (9:10). Andrew’s dedication to his craft is a distorted form of such dedication, but his talent is impressive to behold. Fletcher’s dedication is even more distorted, but his desire—to create another Charlie Parker, who, he tells Andrew, didn’t become a great player until he was humiliated by a fellow musician—is also admirable, to a point.

Whiplash does offer a form of justice for Fletcher’s excesses, but it’s not the film’s final word on Fletcher’s methods or on Andrew’s complicity in subjecting himself to Fletcher’s demands. Whiplash builds to a rousing conclusion that nevertheless leaves viewers pondering what it takes to be the best in a given field, and whether the sacrifice is worthwhile. It also will leave Christian viewers grateful that our Teacher’s demand of perfection is a requirement that He meets for us, knowing we could never achieve it in our own power (Hebrews 10:14).

Drama

Films

Damien Chazelle

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