A young and talented drummer has dreams of fame and greatness, but is abused by his music professor, who pushes him beyond what is expected of him.
I wasn't sure if I'd ever end up watching Whiplash. Eventually I was both intrigued by the movie, but also tired because my friend Lotta kept praising the movie. I sort of wanted to see something great, and kind of prove my friend wrong.
I used to play piano in a really good music academy on my spare time for about four or five years, but then quit because I couldn't stand my teacher. Well, she was not so bad compared Fletcher, portrayed by J. K. Simmons. She, too, kept pushing me, and it felt annoying since I didn't have the passion for music at that time. Mostly it also bothered me, because I had school and she made me perform in these concert twice a year and it was very stressful.
My struggles with music and studying music really seem like heaven compared to what our main character Andrew had to go through. This movie was really painful to watch because of the abusing teacher. I have to say that Miles Teller portrayed Andrew's physical and mental pain extremely well, which almost unfortunately made the viewing even more painful. Of course it could be worse: the movie could be painful to watch because it bad. In this case it's painful only because the pain is portrayed so well.
The story was good, had a really nice structure to it. If there's one thing that maybe bothered me - seriously I'm not sure if it did when I look at the bigger part - is the beginning. Everything starts kind of fast, like there we have Andrew playing drums and then Fletcher shows up and everything. We don't know much about Andrew at that point, and that I think is okay, since we're going to know all there is to know about his character. But we have no idea who Fletcher is. It's not said. Then again it's also going to be clear. And we see a lot about Fletcher in the way Andrew is reacting to him. And of course when you know something about the movie, you know who Fletcher is.
And if there's something I really want to talk about, it's music. I mean I talk about music on almost every single one of my reviews, and finally I have a reason to really, really talk about it. The music in this movie was - you guessed it - amazing. I don't usually even go for jazz, but it was just great listening to the music in this movie. Seriously, it was just perfect. Of course there was the one thing I've started to love: drums. Since when have I liked drums so much? Since Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance). Yes, I'm bringing that movie up once again. The soundtrack of Birdman was mostly percussions, and in Whiplash, well, the main character plays drums. And it's fantastic how much diversity there can be while playing only drums. You can have so many different rhythms and it doesn't even sound repetitive if you listen to only percussion music for hours. It's great.
I wasn't exactly sure how to rate the movie. I was kinda going in between two different marks, and I asked my friend Lotta for help, and basically she decided the rating. I have no complaints though. I can trust her taste in movies.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
10 / 10
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