Whiplash
The thin line between where perfectionism is productive and where it is destructive.
- Director
- Damien Chazelle
- Year
- 2014
- Runtime
- 106 min
I came out of it excited at the point where I should have been disturbed, so I watched it again. The second time I saw that Fletcher is not right, only effective — and those are not the same thing.
A softened version of that figure is very common on technical teams: demanding, high standards, and quietly consuming people. Output rises in the short term. In the long term nobody is left, and the ones who stay do the same thing to others.
The final scene is flawless as cinema and dangerous as a message.