Andrew Neiman's Drumming-of-Age

     The 2014 movie Whiplash is not officially described as a coming-of-age narrative, but the way the values of the protagonist Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) are challenged by his mentor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) and his family all follow the patterns of a coming-of-age narrative. 

    Andrew has been an ambitious drummer for as long as he can remember. But after joining the prestigious conductor Fletcher's special ensemble, the conductor's emotionally abusive style of teaching introduces to Andrew intense anxieties about his future for the first time, pushing him to practice the drums to the point of bleeding. Andrew believes in Fletcher's philosophy of giving one hundred percent effort towards your art to become great, so his ambition to become great constantly pushes him to great stress and pain. We watch Andrew himself curse his own supposed shortcomings whenever he is humiliated by Fletcher, showing his concurrence with Fletcher's ideas.

    At the same time, we learn that Andrew's family values Andrew's achievements in music very little. With all the stress Andrew has been enduring in order to improve, they show almost no interest in his endeavors, treating his music career as a naive, unstable dream. Andrew is misunderstood by his family and is seen as naive, which is common in coming-of-age narratives.

    Eventually, Andrew finds himself late for a recital and gets in a car crash trying to speed to the auditorium, and instead of seeking help he climbs out of the car with his sticks and limps the rest of the way to the auditorium, prioritizing his spot on the ensemble more than his own health. A broken arm leaves him unable to play and expelled from the ensemble. Through contemplation with his Dad and a lawyer, Andrew realizes that Fletcher's one hundred percent effort philosophy has led many other students to harm and that it would not lead him to eventual greatness. In this moment, Andrew matures and realizes the philosophy he had been following was hurting him and people around him. His growth past his harmful mindset is further shown by his desire to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend, who he had broken up with in the belief that she would get in the way of his improvement as a drummer. A protagonist's growth out of naive values is an essential element of coming-of-age stories.

    Finally, Andrew simultaneously shows his growth and redeems himself to his family in one final stunning scene. His family gets to see him perform on a big stage, where he takes control of the performance and uses all the techniques he had practiced throughout the film perfectly in an almost five-minute-long solo. He does this not as his tired, one-hundred-percent overworked self, but as a mature musician that knows what he can realistically do to push himself to become great. The satisfying coming-of-age of Andrew Neiman from an ambitious student into confident musician is Whiplash's main focus and success as a film.