*Warning: This movie review/analysis includes spoilers*

How far are we willing to go to achieve greatness? How far is too far? Whiplash gives the audience the freedom to assess the “right or wrong” answer. As a disclaimer: My desperately limited knowledge of the jazz world is based almost entirely on the director, Damien Chazelle’s, presumably more well-known masterpiece, La La Land (which I believe, on a side note, is virtually flawless). I was able to catch some of the references to Charlie Parker and Chazelle’s genuine passion for jazz music through Sebastian’s character in La La Land and was amazed at how profoundly it was represented in Whiplash. While the score in the movie sounded pretty decent to me, to real musicians it could have possibly just been plain wrong--I don’t have a clue. But if you asked me what the best part of the movie was, I would tell you it was the undeniable brilliance of the characters and their relationships with each other.

Andrew Neiman, our main character, is a talented and wonderfully naive drummer attending the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory music school. In one of the very first scenes where Andrew and his father are sitting in the movie theater, there is a perceptible, emotional distance between them. His dad plainly says “I don’t understand you” after Andrew reveals that he doesn’t like the raisinettes that his dad adds to the popcorn. Although in the moment they are only really concerned about the raisinettes, the same lack of understanding between Andrew and his father resonates through the very last scenes of the movie. As viewers, we see Andrew’s father trying to lead him away from his music career as much as possible, urging him to quit when he feels discouraged, and later hiring a lawyer in hopes of having Andrew’s music teacher fired. 

One of my favorite scenes out of the entire film was Andrew’s family dinner. Andrew shares about his role as a core drummer in Schaffer’s studio band--A make-or-break in his career and an undoubtedly impressive accomplishment. But it’s pretty clear from the immediate interruption to congratulate Andrew’s cousins, (one a Model UN student and one an MVP highschool football player), that his family members don’t actually care too much about his achievement. Nor do they care how exceptional being a core drummer is in the music world and its significance to Andrew. He makes a triumphant strike to his family’s pride, reminding them that his cousin’s school football league is only division three, while simultaneously beginning a battle of backhanded comments between himself and his family members. 

Andrew’s uncle questions if he has any friends and he confidently answers that he doesn’t feel he needs any. Andrew brings up Charlie Parker as an example of a successful musician who also seemingly lacked the desire for friends. His father states, “Dying broke and full of drugs at the age of 34 is not exactly my idea of success” to which Andrew assuredly retorts, “I’d rather die drunk, broke at 34, and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remember who I was”. Besides the evident amount of tension between Andrew and his dad and their distinctive perspectives, there is a small hint of an attack in each of their comments. In Andrew’s eyes, his father had essentially told him being a musician like Charlie Parker wouldn’t be his “idea of success” and therefore, Andrew would never really be successful in his opinion. It’s almost irrelevant whether Charlie Parker’s life was short or miserable to Andrew. Charlie Parker was a great musician, and even so early in the film, it’s clear that being a great musician is all that truly matters to him. 

Another reason why this scene is so intriguing is that it suggests that it’s not only Andrew’s family that “doesn’t understand” Andrew, but also that Andrew doesn’t understand his family.  Andrew is immensely ambitious, clearly stating that he would rather die young than to fail to achieve greatness. He doesn’t understand his family’s pride in accomplishments like being in Model UN and high school football or their lack of desire to become something more than that. Andrew centers his life around becoming acclaimed as one of the best drummers in history and does not care for anyone who doesn’t have an equal level of aspiration. Neither Andrew or his family take interest in each other’s personal goals in the confidence that their own prospects are more significant than the other’s. The audience cannot automatically see either as villains in the story since there are so many more aspects to each character than simply being good or bad.

If we take a look at Terrence Fletcher, Andrew’s teacher and the studio band conductor, we aren’t given as much background and are therefore yielded room to interpret the reasoning behind his actions. In one of their first encounters, Fletcher tells Andrew about Charlie Parker and from then on he frequently refers to Parker as an example of what the path to success looks like, “Charlie Parker became Charlie Parker when Joe Jones threw a cymbal at his head”. The idea that Joe Jones turned to violence as a way to push Charlie Parker to become a better musician aligns with Fletcher’s own teaching methodology. In multiple scenes he is shown verbally and emotionally abusing the band members causing the audience to question why, even understanding the line about Charlie Parker, Fletcher would take such extreme measures to conjure greatness from his students. 

The appeal of thoughtful movies and art to me, is the ability to offer a variety of meaning for different people based on their own experiences. For example, having felt a connection to Andrew’s ambition (in a less extreme but still significant way), I personally choose to believe that Fletcher is not purely a monster who takes advantage of his power over his students. He appears to me as a man who needs a star pupil, a discovery of his own, to validate him as an integral part of the jazz world and is willing to do anything to narrow the search for musicians who have what it takes. Does that justify any kind of Fletcher’s abuse? No, absolutely not. But there is a reason for his actions--He is not merely made an adversarial character with no other purpose than to bully Andrew. 

Both Andrew and Fletcher aspire to greatness which fosters their mutual understanding of each other. They are equally motivated to do whatever it takes to be successful by their fear of fading behind the face of mediocrity as the jazz world seems to be slowly crumbling before them. But, the question of whether they agree with each other’s actions or if they are actively working to help each other is left ambiguous. 

The end scene of the film unfolds ostensibly like a final duel between Andrew and Fletcher. Fletcher’s harsh teaching methods and Andrew’s determination to appeal to them eventually leads to his dismissal from Shaffer. Andrew was oblivious to the fact Fletcher might know he was the one responsible for Fletcher’s dismissal from Schaffer. Consequently, Fletcher's plan to publicly humiliate and destroy any possibility of a music career for Andrew by inviting him to play in a performance but giving him the wrong sheet music to play, was executed almost impeccably. After meeting the waiting arms of his father behind the stage in a kind of defeat, Andrew turns around and strides back onto the stage. He starts playing, disrupting Fletcher’s performance plan, but then commences the most intense drum solo of the entire movie. 

I thought of a few different interpretations here: Andrew returns out of determination to prove himself. At that point, having nothing left to lose, maybe he thinks “why not?”. Maybe he returns out of spite to Fletcher to try and embarrass him back. My final theory being that this exact moment had been Fletcher’s goal all along: “Charlie Parker became Charlie Parker because Joe Jones threw a cymbal at his head...he came back and played the best solo the world had ever seen”. Could it be that Fletcher had seen the potential in Andrew from the beginning and merely had an extreme way of getting him to perform at the level of perfection they both strived for? Or was it Andrew’s own pride and ambition that drove him to play the best drum solo of his life? 

The camera moves backwards to show Andrew, drenched in sweat, hitting the drums at a furious speed. To me, it seems as though he had reached a violent mental state and was possibly losing some sort of emotional control, that maybe Andrew is no longer there but instead a kind of monster of Fletcher’s creation. There is a shot of his father’s face appearing shocked and terrified of Andrew, eyes staring, mouth agape. It not only seems like he “doesn’t understand” Andrew the same way he didn’t understand him and his ambitions before, but almost like he doesn’t even recognize his son. Nonetheless, to Andrew and to Fletcher, this moment is masterful. When Fletcher approaches Andrew on stage, he conducts him through the solo and Andrew follows. In the last seconds of the movie, there’s a single glance between Andrew and Fletcher, an approving satisfied smile, and “Caravan” ends on a high note. 

Does Andrew ultimately end up agreeing with Fletcher’s alarming tactics seeing as they might have actually been effective? Better yet, does the audience believe that the ethical matters override the possibility of true glory? Chazelle’s work plants a beautifully simple idea that intentionally grows into an abundance of questions and ideas that I could discuss incessantly. The complex relationship between Andrew and Fletcher that is crafted through effortless dialogue and camerawork is what I believe makes Whiplash movie worth watching for anyone willing.