He’s my mentor. Taught me everything I know.” He was also her first boss, leader, and a married man. I soon discovered that he did teach her everything she knew: in ways that made me sick. This taboo affair, of which I was the unsuspecting third wheel, made me allergic to the term. “Mentor?” I’d oft smirk, with an ambiguity previously reserved for “platonic relationship” phrases.
My disdain, though, was a cover-up. One bad experience hadn’t sullied me. I was envious. I had never been tutored by anyone; no hands of wisdom had blessed me. Perhaps nobody had thought it worthy to choose me as a successor. I didn’t have, or hadn’t earned, anybody to look up to.
For example, one can sense that Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons; in his Oscar-winning turn as a frighteningly profane music teacher) chooses young drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) early on in Damien Chazelle’s 2014 indie, Whiplash . Fletcher pushes Neiman to the brink and beyond. He insults him, slaps him, taunts him, ridicules him and breaks him into trembling pieces. He hates him, but with method and perverse rationality. He stretches Neiman mentally and physically — till the kid has warts on his drumming fingers and scars on his jazz-humming mind — as if he were the subversive comic-book villain whose job was to identify and create, and not destroy, new superheroes: a real-world Mr. Glass to Neiman’s David Dunn, to use M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable analogy.
Fletcher aches for a disciple that bleeds, a victim who endures. He is willing to sacrifice souls in pursuit of an immortality he has only envisioned. And they want to impress him. Hell, I want to impress him. If this were a sports film, Neiman’s entire ordeal — even when he sprints to a concert after being in a near-fatal car accident — would be the gruelling training montage stretched out over sonic beats. Theirs is a toxic but necessary equation, a trial by fire: one you’d imagine tennis warrior Rafael Nadal shares with scowling coach (and uncle) Toni Nadal, one that Adonis (Michael B. Jordan, in Creed ) aches to extract from the brooding Rocky Balboa (Slyvester Stallone), one that spunky boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank, in Million Dollar Baby ) urges hard-nosed trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) into. In each case, the master exchanges inspiration with the protégé.
In Whiplash ’s hypnotic climax, Neiman hijacks Fletcher’s titular symphony with a drum solo. Minutes ago, the teacher had contrived to humiliate his most heartbreaking student in the pettiest way. And yet, here he was, brandishing another bloodstained drum set. Note the penultimate shot sequence: Neiman stops, sweating, exhilarated, breathless, looks cravingly at Fletcher; a tight shot of Fletcher’s flaming eyes and nose; a tighter shot of Neiman’s expectant drenched face; Fletcher at long last nods slowly, his cheeks tighten and eyes twitch agonisingly; Chazelle only suggests contours of ‘that’ grin we’ve waited for all our lives; Neiman smiles, dazed, a messy mortal finally appreciated by his Atlas, his Achilles, his devilish God. One can almost hear Fletcher whisper: “Now that we know who you are, I know who I am.”
Neiman’s smile, tinged with both reverence and disgust, is one the infamous John du Pont (Steve Carell, in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher ) wants to carve into professional wrestler Mark Schultz’s (Channing Tatum) mouth. Carell plays a millionaire and sports enthusiast, is an exceptionally lonely man who wants to feel important. He decides to ‘nurture’ potential Olympic medallists under his rich wing. However, his unrealised need to be admired by his own mother overrides his individual quest for mentorship. At one point, when she is wheeled into the swanky gymnasium, du Pont pointedly puts on a show for her. She observes from a corner. He feigns authority by giving his ‘fellows’ a weak speech, before demonstrating basic moves. Notice the wrestlers’ sympathetic expressions, as they humour a pathetic middle-aged child trying to impress his crippled mother in a playground. But nobody wants to impress him. And except Mark, nobody understands him either.
He is possibly what Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams, in Good Will Hunting ) would have become without his psychology degree. If not for Will (Matt Damon), an unambitious genius in desperate need of direction, Sean would have prodded through as a grieving almost-man. He feels the need to protect Will’s Mozart from the many opportunistic Antonio Salieri (s). Theirs becomes a classic symbiotic bond, one whose therapeutic ripple is realised beyond his scruffy beard and pained eyes.
Some cinematic figures look exactly the way mentors are imagined: Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, in Moneyball ), the Oakland Athletics’ general manager, has that chewy care-a-hoot swag about him. Testy spirits make for unassuming leaders; he makes you want to earn his sarcasm and glances. The film is an underdog tale of baseball’s most astonishing team streak. But it primarily explores the oddball marriage between old-school romance and modern pragmatism: Beane embraces change and unknowingly bloods his heir apparent, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, the analytical number cruncher). In an amusing display of geeky elation, Brand contorts his face into a sneering “c’mon!” and fist-bumps the air when he negotiates a tense player-transfer on the phone. He is inheriting Beane’s silver tongue; the quintessential baton-passing moment. There has rarely been a quieter coupling.
But none are perhaps as self-respecting as Andrea (Anne Hathaway, in The Devil Wears Prada ), the intern who chooses to walk away from her own Fletcher, fashion boss Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Priestly’s final smile is fleeting, melancholic, different, and yet identical to Fletcher’s. By breaking free and becoming her “biggest disappointment”, Andrea represents everything she once hoped to be: her own person.
Five years ago, I found an older brother. We became fast friends. We drank and watched movies together. Everything from my drawling chuckle to my lazy intonations began to assume his form. We even went on a health kick together. It felt like we were in a buddy flick. As a reputed film critic, he goaded me into accompanying him to screenings. It started as a hoot. But without being taught, I learned from him. I emulated him. I observed the way he observed films. His career decisions would directly or indirectly shape mine. Without really trying, he had transformed me.
I had laughed like him, looked like him and respected him. Unfortunately, I fought like him too. And hurt like him. Almost a year to this day, our paths separated. Ours wasn’t a dramatic divorce. He became a director. I did my job, which, ironically, meant critiquing his job the way I had learned to. Just like that, we silently fell out. I still don’t know whose role it is to forgive.
Maybe he let me walk away before I became him, or maybe just because I couldn’t. Perhaps we were in his buddy flick all along. And perhaps, like Miranda Priestly, he was my greatest mentor — by simply failing to be one.
The writer is a freelance film critic and habitual solo traveller
