On Whiplash

No, I wasn't a fan of Whiplash. Yes, I did give it a mighty 4-star review (oooh woahhhh) on Letterboxd regardless. Let's talk about it!

And remember, this is not a review. This is an opinion. I don't care if the movie is technically great or whatever.

Here's what I liked:

The idea of a spiraling main character. An artist driven to insanity by obsession and the need for perfection is my favorite type of main character. I really liked the concept of it in this movie, but I wasn't a fan of the execution. I was expecting something a bit more dramatic and grand (in the most realistic way possible). I was expecting Trance-level insanity. Whiplash felt more like a valid crash-out to me. Like, yeah I can see how someone can go to such levels of obsession and perfection purely out of spite if someone was spitting profanity in my face and killing me with every rehearsal. I get it. Regardless, I do really appreciate that this goes in the 'obsessed artist' category of films.

The editing and simplicity. Almost everything about this film felt bare-bones (and I don't mean financially). There wasn't much else present in the film besides the bare necessities. The editing being so tight really brought it all together technically. It resolved some of the issues I found with the story. I would love to point out some specific scenes, but I don't feel inclined to go back to the movie and pull examples.

Fletcher. If I love obsessed main characters, then I love the ridiculously rude villain a little bit more. Obviously, I would hate him if he existed as a real person that I had to interact with in that capacity, but I love seeing these characters on screen. He's a psychopath and his screen-presence was just great.

Now, my grievances about the film hold more weight than my appreciations for it, so as you read further, just pretend that I wrote it that way too (even though I didn't).

Here's what I didn't like:

The ending. I did not like the ending, and I'm someone who usually loves unsatisfying endings. I love it when characters fully descend into insanity, die, break their hearts, or just disappear, leaving us to decipher the cliffhanger. In Whiplash, both characters just kinda.... hit the undo button on their arcs. As the audience, we are meant to believe that both Neiman and Fletcher are changed people, but the ending reminds us that their true selves — cursed musicians — still remain inside. I didn't like that. Watching Neiman solo it out for a minute and bleed to his inevitable perfect moment just wasn't it. I wish we saw Neiman fail and Fletcher falter a little bit. Justice didn't need to be served in full (meaning Neiman finding success and Fletcher crumbling), but even some small part of that would've been nice. Maybe this is just me loving stories about failures who realize their secondary successes are something greater. Compare this to La La Land's ending, which displays one of my favorite endings — bittersweet heartbreak. I don't think I need to say much more.

The girlfriend. She was just there as a means of providing clarity about his obsession and insanity. I feel like there were so many better ways of doing that same thing though. Maybe I just didn't like her and that's all. This is part of what I meant when I said that the execution of his obsession felt different (read: weird) to me.

She wasn't wrong for moving on though. I support her in that move.

Finally, something else. I'm not exactly sure how to phrase this grievance, but it was just a little off-putting. Perhaps that off-putting feeling was the intention of the movie, but as a result, I just wasn't at the edge of my seat nor was I particularly looking forward to what came next. I didn't feel the adrenaline that others claimed I would feel. I just sat there trying to finish the movie so I could check it off my watchlist. I don't even feel like rewatching it at all. Not even a single scene.

Moving on....

As a percussionist of nearly ten years, I thought I would really like it. I'm a band kid out-and-out, and I've heard about Whiplash as this cinematic masterpiece for as long as I could remember watching American movies. I get the feeling of needing to be better-than-perfect as a musician, although I've never cared about it nearly as much as Neiman. It's just that hearing about the film's greatness for so long has really heightened my expectations. I'm not denying it's importance in film history as a cinematic masterpiece — I'm just saying that I didn't like it all that much.

[Side note: When people say they don't like random famous art pieces, it's fine because people have different interpretations and art is subjective, but when someone says they don't like a film, there's an immediate attack on them. In art, opinion and discourse feels a little more respected, but with film, opinions are immediately dismissed. Maybe I'm just plain wrong with this observation, or maybe the group I've observed is too limited. Just a thought.]

In the end, I did give it a 4-star rating, so here's why: It felt technically good, and it asked some very real questions, like how far will you go for success? Maybe watching this movie in a setting that wasn't a sleepy airplane would've changed things. Watching this with friends or in a theater might have enhanced the experience as well. I'll never know how a different viewing experience will impact my opinion though because I don't exactly plan on rewatching it...