Whiplash, Damien Chazelle’s film, stars a young potential filled drummer, Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller and a controversial band conductor, Terence Fletcher, played by J.K Simmons.

The story is set in present-day New York City, primarily taking place in Chazelle’s fictional music school, Shaffer University. After being personally selected by Fletcher to join the school’s studio band, viewers watch as the 19-year old prodigy slowly descends into both a sate of total madness and simultaneously stardom due to the teacher’s constant seemingly, never ending hurls of abuse almost always directed towards Neiman.

Over the course of the film the percussionist is slapped multiple times, stood up, personally insulted and even has chairs flung at his head by the conductor. Yet, he continuously sacrifices relationship after relationship not only out of fear of Fletcher, but out of passion and drive for the art of drumming.

What sets the masterpiece apart from your average modern life of a teenager story is approximately everything, but the backbone message of the film is that hard work while might lead to emotional, or at times even physical instability is the only path to achieve true greatness at any skillset. Which appears to be a new concept to the movie industry. In any other story, Andrew would have fallen in mad, innocent, young love with Nicole (Neiman’s on and off again love interest played by Melissa Benoist) and would become the greatest musician to ever walk the face of the Earth with little to no practice. But Whiplash dares to shatter these wildly excepted rules of pop culture through brutal force.

It is this real world approach along with phenomenal acting and screenwriting that makes the film not only genuinely enjoyable to watch but thought provoking in an entirely fresh, unique way that may be found in very few other films, if any.