Although film club may put this up to debate, I personally think that one of the best movies in the past decade is Whiplash (2014). There’s many things about this movie that leave it a near perfect watch, from its cast to the plot to the acting, it’s just all so incredible.

Whiplash is about a young drummer named Andrew Nemen (played by Miles Teller), who is a student at a prestigious music school in New York. One day, the famed studio band director, Terrence Fletcher (played by J.K. Simmons), walks in on Nemen practicing, and after a few hints about what he’ll test and a couple days, Fletcher comes into Nemens class to test the kids, seeing who’s fit for the studio band and who isn’t. Luckily, Nemen knows what he’s testing, so he gets into the studio band. Then comes months of Fletcher being a torturous (literally and figuratively) teacher. He physically and mentally abuses his students, as he doesn’t strive for perfection, he expects it. Eventually, after a few traumatic experiences (including a car crash and getting kicked out of the school), Nemen anonymously confesses Fletcher’s actions to people, and Fletcher is fired. One night some time later, Nemen runs into Fletcher at a jazz bar, and they talk about their music experiences and lives. By the end of it, Fletcher asks for Nemen to be the drummer in his band that’s about to open for a jazz festival, and Nemen says yes. Later, after the show started, Nemen realizes he was tricked. Apparently, Fletcher knew about Nemen’s involvement in getting him fired, so Fletcher set him up to fail by not giving him the charts for their performance, essentially causing Nemen to have to play music without knowing the music. This only continues for one song though, as Nemen takes matters into his own hands, playing the songs he knows and cuing the rest of the band into the music. While what he does is unexpected, Fletcher has to roll with it, because he doesn’t want to look worse in front of all the people, although he’s clearly fuming inside. I won’t give away the entire ending, but rest assured it is worth it.

That’s a great sum of the movie, but it doesn’t exemplify the pure emotion in it all. The name of the movie, Whiplash, wasn’t just the name of the movie, or the name of a song in it, but it exemplifies the emotional whiplash we see in the movie, where everything is changing too fast for you to process it. While the acting is clearly perfect, given that J.K. Simmons won an Academy Award for best supporting actor, it’s the script of it that makes it perfect. Simply every single part of the movie has many deeper meanings. When you watch it multiple times, you find out something new that you didn’t pick up on the last time. There aren’t many perfect movies, but this is one of them. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there certainly isn’t anything you can say against it.

Even if you aren’t a big fan of movies about music, it’s a perfect watch because when you watch it, you realize that it’s not about music, it’s about perfection, and what you’re willing to do to achieve it. Whiplash streams on Hulu, and there’s a 50/50 chance after watching that you might find yourself listening to studio jazz (it’s actually very relaxing though).