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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
It turned out to be an over-the-top sports movie, which expects the audience to suspend disbelief and cheer the outrageously contrived obstacles put in the way of the hero before the inevitable triumph.
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Wait, what? You think that was a triumph for him at the end? That was a profoundly sad moment. He's dragged himself back in because he can't go on without that approval. Teller's character is basically doomed to misery. The dude is emotionally damaged, deluded obsessed to the point of self-destruction. Pretty sure the director suggested at one point that he expects Neyman to kill himself in his early 30's. This is
not a film with a happy ending.
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I like to think I can discern and appreciate human drama without the narrative sledgehammers of AGONY, HATE, and REVENGE slamming me in the face every 10 minutes. And that's what to me is the bigger problem. By the end of Whiplash, I wouldn't have been surprised if the bandleader broke into the drummer's apartment, murdered his father, and attempted to rape his girlfriend at knife-point. That's how over-the-top it becomes trying to ramp up the conflict.
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I can't believe you don't see the disconnect here between Simmons's character's central motivation and just destroying his former pupil. He returns multiple times to a story about Charlie Parker that is actually apocryphal as a justification for his actions.