The Novice is basically Black Swan for the college rowing crowd
Isabelle Fuhrman is a harried but determined freshman rower in this in-your-face psychodrama
Film Reviews Novice
Right from the opening minutes of The Novice, it’s clear that freshman college student Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman, a.k.a., that creepy-ass kid from Orphan) is all about excelling. We first see her completing an exam in a classroom full of people. She finishes before everyone else, but then goes back to double-check her work. By the time she’s done, the room is empty. She ain’t leaving until she knows she’s got everything right.
The Novice also quickly establishes that there’s something wrong with Alex. After finishing her exam, she sprints over to a building where, deep in the bowels, a novice training program for boat racers is in session. Being a first-class rower is very important to Alex. She will spend most of the movie pushing her body and mind to extremes in pursuit of that goal. She works on an indoor ergonomic rowing machine (or the “erg”) to the point where some bodily fluid—sweat, vomit, urine—comes spewing out. She constantly makes notes and has the rowing instructions of her cool-guy coach (Jonathan Cherry) playing on a loop in her head. She’s also found a rival in a more talented novice (Amy Forsyth) who has no clue her teammate is gunning for her. Even though she just started the program, Alex is angling to be the best rower on campus.
Of course, Novice is semi-autobiographical. Using her traumatic college years as a rower for inspiration, writer-director Lauren Hadaway chronicles a year in the life of a young go-getter who’s constantly striving towards excellence, no matter the damage to her body and psyche. If this sounds like a collegiate Black Swan to you, it’s no coincidence: That’s one of Hadaway’s favorite movies.
The filmmaker, who also co-edited The Novice, depicts Alex’s freshman year in quick-cutting, frenetic, anxiety-ridden fashion, with composer Alex Weston’s string-heavy score properly ratcheting up the tension and Fuhrman gamely acting like a harried but dedicated ball of nerves. (There are scenes where she practices her rowing skills in the water, practically the closest she gets to achieving any sort of peace.) While no one says it, it’s obvious to everyone around her (and to the audience) that Alex is disturbed—a young woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Yet her psychological issues are never fully vocalized. We never really know why she works herself so damn hard. Alex tells her teacher-assistant girlfriend, played by on-the-rise model Dilone, about studying to show up some know-it-all bro back in high school, but we later learn this may not even be a true story. The ambiguity of her motives will probably frustrate viewers expecting some explanation for her mad drive.
The Novice, which got nominated for five Indie Spirit awards, has been widely described as a psychological thriller. But it’s more of an in-your-face cautionary tale for young, ambitious college students who may be working themselves a little too hard at university. The lesson is plain: If you don’t slow down and chill out, you might turn out like this gal.
29 Comments
Hollywood has come for the niche but hopefully lucrative college rowing crowd. It’ll be known as “rowsploitation”. And hopefully, it’ll be beautiful.
Lucrative is right. Rowing has definitely had a history as a rich person sport. The equipment is incredibly expensive. Also the best rowers in college tend to be kids who went to high schools with crew teams. What high schools have crew teams? The rich ones. And the best rowers from those high school crew teams are kids who went to “rowing camp”, which is also expensive. There have been community programs aimed at getting kids of all backgrounds into rowing (I think there’s a particularly successful one in LA, and just about anywhere with water will have folks of all income levels engaged in aquatics) but certainly when I was a rower at a Big Ten school 20 years ago, it was a particular set of folks who dominated the scene.
I have a cousin who rowed in college, but I don’t think her highschool had a team.
Same here. I had zero experience, tried out for the team on a whim, made it, and it enjoyed the sport for two years (had to give it up because it consumed too much of my time).I can’t say our rowing squad was necessarily any wealthier than the average student attending that university, but we were far from an elite program. The sport had only recently been ungraded from club status, so most of us were just happy to hang on to our varsity status.
Would that just be like… Going out in a boat?
I was just trying to get “rowsploitation” or “crewsploitation” in there; I wasn’t expecting someone to make it into a graduate thesis.
I think people were ready to tell the rich to fuck off, and your joke somehow opened the flood gates.
Once again, I’ve meddled with powers I can’t begin to comprehend.
First you opened the Ark of the Covenant, then you tried to steal the Holy Grail, and now this!
So few people know or care about rowing that any current/former rowers will leap at the opportunity to discuss it. I think it’s the same with any niche sport. I had an old boss who I’m still in touch with and somewhere along the way he got really into curling and holy shit.
Fucking Winkelvii.
Hallroween
This would have been a great comeback vehicle for Aunt Becky…..
nice.
At last, the gritty reboot of Row, Row, Row Your Boat that we deserve shall grace the silver screen.
Call me when the stream in that song gets its origin prequel.
The Novice was, imo, the absolute best film at Tribeca this year. I feel like I’ve been waiting ages for this to finally be released.
Agreed!
The only other rowing movie I can think of is Oxford Blues, eons ago starring a baby faced Rob Lowe. Not a terrible film, and no doubt less harrowing than this one…
Does A River Wild count?
I saw that one in a theater 0.O
Does the Social Network count? Rowing is the only part of that movie I remember (because there was a clip of the rowing scene in a documentary), so I assume it was most of the movie.
Isabelle Fuhrman, a.k.a., that creepy-ass kid from Orphan
What’s hilarious is that all these years later she’s going to be playing the same character in a prequel with no CGI de-aging, just sitting on her knees to make herself look shorter. I don’t think it’s supposed to be a Dorf-esque comedy either.
Dorf on Adoption does sound darkly hilarious.
Dorf on LSD
Hop On Dorf
Maybe she should check out Springwood Minimum Security Prison. I hear they need an eighth to row against the Princeton alums.
Princeton!? *grumbles darkly*
Rowing huh? Couldn’t come up with a more unrelatable rich-kid ‘sport’ like polo or fox hunting? The director went to Southern Methodist University, which has an annual cost, if you live on campus, of about 81k a year which is only slightly less than Harvard. Uh huh, lemme go see if I have any shits to give about this…mmm…not finding any, nope.
This reminds me less of Black Swan and more of Whiplash. Except this woman seems to have her own internal J.K. Simmons screaming “Not my tempo!”