Whiplash (15), directed by Damien Gazelle

5/5

JK Simmons takes bullying to a terrifying new level in Whiplash, with the aid of a jazz music score whose notes will give you hair-raising chills in this extraordinary knife-edge drama.

His electrifying performance as a ruthless music instructor who terrorises a promising young drummer (Miles Teller) quite rightly earned him a Golden Globe award this week.

In his acceptance speech he thanked Teller, who he described as a young actor of such maturity and brilliance that every day on set he wanted to scream at him and hit him in the face.

He does to frightening effect with whatever is closest to hand.

He turns the drummer into an emotional, blubbering wreck in an outstanding performance as the student who literately sheds blood, sweat and tears for his art.

Whiplash moves to its own thrilling beat due to writerdirector Damien Gazelle’s inspired use of jazz, the other element in this toxic threesome.

It’s exhilarating, moving and equivalent to watching a car crash in that, despite the carnage, you can’t look away.

A remarkable film success which merits big box office.

Maria Duarte

Wild (15), directed by Jean-Marc Vallee

3/5

Last year it was Mia Wasikowska playing real-life writer Robyn Davidson who trekked 1,700 miles across the Australian outback with four camels and a dog to find herself.

This year, step up Reese Witherspoon as novelist Cheryl Strayed, walking 1,100 miles solo across the US in a bid to overcome the loss of her mother, sleeping around and drugs.

Witherspoon, who optioned Strayed’s book Wild for the big screen, does a sterling job in portraying the writer, along with Laura Dern as her mother.

But it’s a film which never truly engages.

Her back story, revealed in flashbacks, proves a disappointing follow-up to Jean Marc Vallee’s Oscar-winning Dallas Buyer’s Club.

Maria Duarte

Testament of Youth (12A), directed by James Kent

2/5

I’ve not read proto-feminist Vera Brittain’s celebrated memoir of love and loss about her privileged pre-war life and subsequent gut-wrenching WWI experiences as a volunteer nursing injured British and German soldiers.

I’m sure it is special. This film cerainly is not.

TV director James Kent’s first feature transforms Juliette Towhidi’s bland screenplay into equally bland drama.

The result resembles a three-episode BBC TV Sunday serial. Backed by our licence fee and lottery funding, its English locations make it perfect for the US TV market.

Swedish actor Alicia Vikander plays Brittain, who loves and loses the men in her life to the war. She mostly manages a creditable English accent and doesn’t often embarrass herself.

Kit Harrington, playing her fiance, Taron Egerton as her brother, along with Dominic West and Emily Watson, give performances as bland as much of the storytelling.

Scenes of wartime suffering, notably a searing shot of wounded men lying on the ground in the open, do hit hard.

But that impact simply serves to underline the cliches in what’s mostly a sad waste of material that deserves far better treatment than this.

Ethan Carter