Miss Flicks

The Novice: Film Review

I actively sought out Lauren Hadaway‘s feature directorial debut The Novice because I had heard so many positive reactions and I can confirm that everybody is correct and this is an excellent psychological thriller.

The film follows Alex Dall (Isabelle Furhman), a college freshman who is majoring in physics despite it being her weakest subject. She likes to challenge herself and prove that you can achieve anything if you work hard enough. She decides to sign up for the college’s novice rowing team and becomes scarily obsessed with moving up to the varsity team and working her way into the top boat.

Alex is a perfectionist in the absolute extreme. She works so hard to be the best and it kills her when somebody else is naturally better, such as her fellow novice Jamie Brill (Amy Forsyth). She obsesses over every mistake, about beating targets and records, and pushes her mind and body to the limit every day; determined to be better, stronger and faster. She doesn’t ever relax or take a break and it’s honestly exhausting watching her getting up at the crack of dawn to row before going to physics class. It’s like she’s a glutton for punishment!

Hadaway does a fantastic job of getting the audience into Alex’s head – even if we don’t understand why she’s like this or approve of her actions, we know how her brain works so her decisions make sense. The sound design really helps us understand her state of mind because we hear Alex repeating her mistakes over and over and obsessing over little details and useful information that can make her better.

You can draw some parallels between this and Black Swan, a psychological thriller set in the ballet world. Like Natalie Portman’s character, Alex descends into madness pushing herself to be perfect and better than her main rival Jamie.

Furhman has never been better – this is easily her best performance yet! She is so convincing as Alex and bulks up just as her character does. Just think of all the hours she must have put in on the erg. Alex is a demanding character in both a mental and physical sense and Fuhrman is terrific.

The Novice is dark, intense and gripping and the runtime flies by. If this is Hadaway’s first feature then I can’t wait to see what she does next.

In cinemas from Friday 1st April