The idea of going to the gym and hoping on a rowing machine was never really high up on my list of things I wanted to do this week but after watching The Novice, it’s shot right down the list.
Remember Whiplash? The film about the drummer who just kept on pushing himself further and further? Now imagine if the guy from Whiplash had a sister that took up rowing instead of drumming and you get The Novice.
The Novice follows Alex Dall (played by Orphan’s Isabelle Fuhrman), a student who’s just joined college and has decided to join the university’s rowing team. What follows is her obsessive and extreme journey full of both physical and psychological stress to make it to the top varsity boat, no matter the cost.
The Novice is an incredibly tense and harrowing psychological thriller that makes for a very impressive feature directorial debut from writer/director Lauren Hadaway. It’s an intense film that has you griped right from the start, not least because Isabelle Fuhrman gives a ferocious performance as the film’s lead.
It’s also the technical elements that help immerse you into the physically and mentally gruelling world of Alex Dall too. The film’s score by Alex Weston is suspenseful and moving, which, in combination with the film’s impressive sound design and sound mixing, as well as the film’s editing, is what helps make The Novice to be as constantly gripping as it is.
Every aspect of the filmmaking keeps building and building and is layered together so well that it’s a pretty damn stressful film to watch. Even though I was only watching the film, and I wasn’t doing any hard work, certainly not compared to the intense rowing that’s happening on screen, because of the extraordinary filmmaking, just sitting and watching it feels like a very stressful experience. But in the best possible way. It has your heart pounding and adrenaline racing, leaving you never wanting to go near a rowing machine or a rowing boat ever again.
The Novice is disturbing yet excruciatingly gripping and it’s impossible to tear your eyes away from this film.
The Novice is released in cinemas and on digital platforms on 1st April.