PARK CITY — Sundance usually wastes opening night on oddball art house fare (like last year’s druggie road trip “Crystal Fairy”) but last night it went the other way and debuted an emotionally engaging film about a student jazz drummer and his teacher, “Whiplash.”
At last, I can write the words, “‘Fame,’ meet ‘Full Metal Jacket.’”
Miles Teller, who is much more chill and assured than he was last year, when he tried way too hard in “The Spectacular Now,” plays a New York kid who is a freshman at a fictitious music conservatory. He attracts the attention of the terrifying conductor (an outstanding J.K. Simmons) of the school’s all-star jazz orchestra, who begins putting him through his blistering paces with a combination of verbal and physical abuse, hilarious sarcastic putdowns and many brutal homophobic “Full Metal Jacket”-style slurs that clearly stunned the politically ubercorrect audience at the Eccles theater.
Fletcher (Simmons) refers to one student as “Mr. Gay Pride of the Upper West Side. This isn’t a Bette Midler concert!” and repeatedly slaps his young protege in the face. A classic line: “Do you want to know why I just hurled a chair at you?” Another (I paraphrase): “The saddest words in the English language are, ‘good job.’” Comparisons with Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich arise, with the understanding that this kid has a chance to be a genius of the skins, but only if he is willing to give it everything and then some. The film is gripping, funny and inspiring: Imagine “The Karate Kid” with Mr. Miyagi played by R. Lee Armey.
Young writer-director Damien Chazelle, who based this project on a short that won a prize at last year’s Sundance, loads “Whiplash” with technical language and detail that gives it an absorbing documentary quality, while the long practice sessions focusing on the interactions between Simmons and Teller are mesmerizing. The boy’s hands bleed as he practices the insanely complicated tune that gives the film its title, and yet you get the sense that he would walk through fire for his near-sadistic coach even as his nice nonentity of a dad (Paul Reiser) fades into the background.
The film suffers, however, from containing only a wisp of a love story (the only female character of significance is a pretty movie-ticket clerk the Teller character shows an interest in but then drops) and the jazz setting may not interest young audiences as much as rock would have. But the film is a crowd-pleaser with good commercial prospects. Sony bought international rights last night after the premiere, leaving domestic rights still available at the moment.