9) Whiplash
Following a maddeningly paced battle of wills between an aspiring jazz drummer (Miles Teller) and his monstrous, charismatic mentor (J.K. Simmons), Whiplash grabs you by throat from the first shot and never lets go. As the year’s most twisted crowd-pleaser, the second feature from writer-director Damien Chazelle was both competitor and counterpoint to a pair of 2014’s other esteemed auteur offerings. A tale of obsessive self-destruction and abusive relationships, Whiplash shared thematic notes with the excellent thriller Gone Girl, while also cheating off of Fincher’s pages a bit to create a sickly visual canvas on which to smear Teller’s blood, sweat, and tears.
Leaner and meaner than the similar look at artistic ambition found in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ostentatious Birdman, Whiplash’s vicious editing provided 2014 a much-needed reminder that, when it comes to shots, whose is longer doesn’t matter. Mirroring the tumultuous syncopation of jazz, Chazelle’s script keeps you on your toes as to whether what you’re watching is a story of rewarded perseverance, or masochistic cruelty. That its climax could make for one of the most exhilarating finales of the year while still maintaining that ambiguity proved Whiplash had the discipline of vision needed to match the electricity of its central performances.
