Is this massively overrated? While I like the theme of how far should anyone be pushed to achieve greatness (and who should do the pushing), isn’t Jazz at its best about improvisation?
Given the focus on precision and sticking to the score, this felt more like a film about a classical musician than a contemporary Jazz drummer. For a movie that aspires to Sadfie levels of anxiety, the stakes are impossibly and ridiculously low.
Also while I like JK Simmons’s performance - he’s really just an exaggerated version of JJJ. I felt like at any moment he would let Andrew into the band permanently if he brought him 4 photos of Spider-Man.
Miles Teller gives a fairly typical Miles Teller performance. He’s a tell don’t show kind of performer all the way down.
So it’s ok! But it gets the extra half star for coming in under 2 hours.