How to pursue your dreams according to Whiplash

Reel Impressions is The NewsHouse’s weekly film review. Contributors Francesco Desiderio and Travis Newbery cover everything from new releases to trending classics. 

In the 2014 film Whiplash, J. K. Simmons’ character, Terence Fletcher, acts as a sort of wicked, omnipresent spirit, haunting the halls of the Shaffer Conservatory of Music in search of his perfect victim. But the thing is, his victims are his students, and he is actually a teacher.

Fletcher’s name precedes him at Shaffer, where all but his own students revere him, and his colleagues reluctantly let him barge into their rooms at any given moment to spot-test their students; he’s apparently the best teacher at the best music school in the country, so why wouldn’t it?

Pressure makes diamonds, so they say. And it would seem that Fletcher is a big fan of that phrase. 

His methods are utterly relentless and go far past the line of harassment and abuse. It would certainly be a different story if he were anybody else, but it’s clear that Fletcher gets the leeway he does because he never fails to deliver. 

It’s here we meet the oh-so-green Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), an untested freshman with big dreams – keyword “untested.”

The thing about Fletcher is, he’s not just a nasty teacher – he’s a nasty person. So when he makes small talk with Neiman before the freshman’s first-ever practice with the prestigious Studio Band, it’s not actually small talk. It’s a reconnaissance mission to figure out the best way to get under Neiman’s skin and then some. 

And that’s precisely what happens. Neiman is quickly broken down to his most vulnerable state in front of all of his newfound peers, who he learns have all been conditioned to be prickly mini-Fletchers themselves. It’s obvious he will find no solace in this cutthroat band.

In a situation where most others would fold without a second thought, he persists. Inspired by an anecdote Fletcher told him about the harsh road to greatness, Neiman wields the abuse to take his craft and personal ambitions themselves to the limit. 

The story goes on from there. Neiman improves, Fletcher pushes back, Neiman chooses fight over flight, and so on. By the end, Neiman goes through hell and back to find his destiny, and Fletcher has finally found a diamond that can’t be cracked under pressure.

The path to greatness is not the same for everyone. Some are born with it, some stumble upon it accidentally and some are nurtured into it carefully and lovingly. Fletcher and Neiman’s cat-and-mouse game of torture and extremes exemplifies a path to greatness cast in the fire of sheer self-determination and forged with blood, sweat and tears.

Was it worth it? Was it worth pushing everything and everyone else away, undermining your peers and coming to hate yourself to get what you wanted? Whiplash asks a simple but universal question: how far will you go to achieve your dreams?

The answer is different for everybody; even then, not everybody needs to realize their dreams or come close to be happy and satisfied. It can be argued Whiplash itself agrees, with Neiman’s spiteful condemnation of his family’s perceived lack of achievement stemming from his Fletcher-induced competitive hysteria.

But for those few, those select few who know what they’re destined for and are willing to tear themselves apart to find it, Whiplash is an eye-opening showcase of that pursuit. 

The path to stardom and its consequences have played a key part in writer-director Damien Chazelle’s young filmography. As Whiplash turns 10, it retains its place in film legend as his raw, visceral first look into what it takes to truly go down in history.