This is a dark thriller about the plunge into darkness caused by an incessant fortitude to be the best at all costs. Director Lauren Hadaway does a terrific job balancing the competing conflicts of the story, giving a movie that paces well and keeps viewers invested in the film. Lead actor Isabelle Fuhrman delivers an sensational performance, convincing in all the right ways. This film has several thematics very similar to Black Swan, from psychosexual to self-harm; thus would absolutely recommend The Novice to anyone who enjoyed Black Swan.

Legs, body, arms, so many things to harm, when you're obsessive and compulsive and you're not close to being calm.

Turbulent times for an overly dedicated student who's pinned her hopes to the varsity mast, intent on going solo, to hell with the personal cost as she swims against the tide.

So many visual cues, the cutting, the scars, and by her own admission, the main character discloses that she had been on a mental health hold via 5150. So not so much as rowing the sport, but a vehicle for acting out. It could've been another similar sport, but rowing as arduous as seen in this film Allows a mentally unstable person to put in motion her demise. Watching this character spiral metaphorically cutting those around her and watching the actress, portraying the behavior and symptoms is some thing special for us all to see so visually, pieces of ourselves teetering on the edge of self destruction. This is a must see for those seeking possibly a portrayal of contemporary mental health issues dismissed in everyday life.

Channeling a bit of Whiplash in its tale of obsession & compulsion, The Novice is raw, intense & gripping when it gets the combination right and is propelled by a thoroughly committed act from its leading lady. It is competently crafted & expertly shot yet what prevents the film from soaring to better heights is its lack of restraint, for it overdoes style to a point that it becomes overbearing.

Written & directed by Lauren Hadaway in her directorial debut, the film's damp & darkly lit set pieces provide a grittiness & perspiring feel to the story and the drizzly atmosphere & piercing score only amp it up further. Through her protagonist, Hadaway deftly captures the danger of ambition turning into obsession but being a novice at feature filmmaking herself, she does get carried away a few times.

What at first seemed like a motivational story of drive, determination & endurance paving way for success soon turns into a physical & psychological nightmare as our lead character goes to extreme lengths in pursuit of her goals. And Isabelle Fuhrman's strenuous & stressful input renders her inner anguish & unhealthy fixation with startling fidelity. It sure is disturbing & worrisome to watch but it's also the film's highlight.

Overall, The Novice makes for a riveting, thrilling & cold-hearted portrait of a young woman's all-consuming journey to the top and despite a few shortcomings of its own makings, it starts the debutant director's filmmaking career on a promising note. Fuhrman really gets under the skin of her neurotic character to deliver an impressive performance that steers this story past the finish line. And she single-handedly makes it worth the price of admission.

I didn't know much about the sport of rowing and this depiction of the Ginormous amount of blood, sweat, tears, dedication and sacrifice of these athletes left me awestruck!! :O It was a well done story, that cuts to the bone and sad to see the extreme obsession of the main character and a trip and stumble down the rabbit hole into crazytown.

Half way thru watching I remembered what that B*TCH that played Aunt Becky on Full House did to get her daughter into a college that the kid didn't even want to go to. Photo shopping her into rowing equipment and such. Stealing a spot from a REAL and DESERVING Athlete, who loves the sport and maybe needing a scholarship to be able to even go to college. MAkes me SICK!!! Sorry, but her and her husband shoulda got WAY MORE JAIL time.

I tip my hat to the REAL women athletes that compete in this sport, because it sure ain't for Sissys!! :O I felt sore and out of breath just watching them!

Definitely worth a watch!!

I like films about people becoming obsessed with something. I think there's something fascinating about the concept of putting every bit of energy you have into achieving or obtaining something. 'The Novice' takes a topic that has zero interest to me, rowing, and made me interested in it. That's no easy task and something the film should be commended for.

The biggest problem the film has is that it feels very flat. There aren't the usual ups and downs most films have. The highs and the lows. There are little annoyances or triumphs here and there but they are fleeting and don't really have an impact. Also isn't always a clear narrative to the film. Where we are going and what is trying to be achieved isn't always clear. It can create a sense of pointlessness.

What I liked about the film though was that it felt motivational. It was inspiring and it got me interested in something I wasn't before. I'm a little torn on where I stand with this one. I'll settle on a generous 7/10.

Whoever wrote this movie watched a lot of Black Swan. It's very close to that movie except this was better in my opinion. It was more mature, more realistic and far more believable. I'm not sure everyone would get it or relate to it without having a similar personality type to Dall. Only other Dall's know the ending with a certainty and understand what drove her in the first place, let alone what drove her to madness. If you've ever had to excel at something you know you're not good at, this is the movie for you.

I wish the other characters in the movie had more background, but in a way the movie was as obsessive about Dall as she was about succeeding. She was a complex character that was fully fleshed out, yet fickle. I would appreciate more female roles like this in the future where you don't even notice the entire movie essentially had no male presence, and without making a thing about it.

Lauren Hadaway's debut feature is what you'd expect to see if you zoomed into those rowing scenes during The Social Network and applied the Black Swan treatment to them.

Inspired by Hadaway's own experiences as a rower, the movie tells the story of Alex Dall, a college student who is driven close to self-destruction by her boundless ambition to gain a spot on the varsity rowing team. There's only drips of who Alex is beyond her all-consuming desire for improvement, a frame of mind that leaves little room for social niceties and personal growth.

It's going to feel like your being beaten to a pulp, while traversing flurries of intense montages, frequently contrasted by sweet tunes of the 60s. Hadaway's experience in the sound department goes a long way to articulate the inner life of the movie and its lead, the latter so vicariously portrayed by Isabelle Fuhrman.

There is this ultimate sense that Alex is not fighting against herself, or even against her teammates, but rather against the whole world - one where however good you are, there's bound to be many, many people who are simply better. A fight you can (almost never) win.

Definitely one of the best debuts of the year.

There are films that sometimes only take 1 or 2 minutes for us to realize that we are in the presence of a different film. And when we dedicate a few years of our life to an activity that is at the base of the complexity of the main character, all the surroundings become more accessible for us. And "Rowing", for those who followed the entire learning process, is as good for "Dall" as "Dall" for "Rowing". A film as beautiful as it is intense.

This film authentically illustrates the struggles that rowers experience and that obsession and perfection, can sink the the boat before you cross the finish line. Isabelle's performance is elevated by her dedication and believability as the novice.

Alex is a college freshman who joins her university's rowing team and undertakes an obsessive physical and psychological journey to make it to the top varsity boat, no matter the cost.

'The Novice' is an incredibly engrossing film, I would compare it to stories set on obsession, search for perfection, and competition, like Black Swan or Wihiplash.

Lauren Hadaway did a great job with this directorial debut creating a very tense and engrossing environment for the story to develop. Alex clearly shows signs of OCD, with actions that depict her intrusive thoughts, her obsessions which drive her to compulsion in her sport, and Hadaway captures it in a hectic and intense ways, you really feel like you are in her brain. The cinemanography is fantastic, the landscapes and the close-ups are some of my favourite elements of it capturing both the isolation and the overwhelming nature of Alex's compulsion.

Isabelle Fuhrman is great as the lead, she an actress I haven't follow as much since her debut in Orphan, but I will definitely check out what she has been up to in the last few years. Her characters is complex, you feel sorry for her, you cheer for her as you meet other characters because you empathize with the story she is telling you, even understanding the destructive nature of her behaviour... but there is a lot more to more to it than you expect from the start.

Maybe I expected a more tragic or explosive ending for the type of story, but I am glad the writer took a more realistic approach to the story.

Highly recommend this film.

There's no doubting Isabelle Fuhrman's commitment in the lead, but the material is thin and the film soon becomes a tiresome grind. Her character is so rebarbative that I had as much desire to spend time with her as most of her crewmates. Yes, there's some dramatic potential in the 'effortless achiever' vs 'obsessive striver' tropes, but The Novice finds little nuance to chew over, and the film seems about half an hour longer than its running time.

Every country has a different growth pattern and environment, and even family backgrounds can shape different personalities. In Taiwan's old college entrance exam system, it was essentially about training everyone to compete and outperform others, striving for better universities and opportunities. In the past, success and social status were often determined by these exam quotas. This led many people to be like Alice in the movie, unable to truly relax and have genuine friends among their peers. Instead, they engaged in constant comparisons of abilities, focusing on who's winning and who's losing. Although I wasn't a top student, the pursuit of excellence and this mindset really prove the saying that 'success requires hard work.

This is the kind of film that you can't watch in parts. It's the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner with a fully determined protagonist making the heart rending journey from absolute beginner to record breaker. The performances, cinematography, and direction are perfect and Isabelle Fuhrman should get multiple awards for her work in this.

Isabelle is wonderful as usual; I will watch any movie she's in no matter how bad it may be, because she always manages to elevate her character above the material and does so in this case as well.

The film is more reminiscent to me of Personal Best (1982) than Black Swan (always amazing how one person will mention a film everyone has seen and then they all have to mention it as well, no matter how wrong it is).

What did not work for me was not that the usual tropes were unusually absent but that the total affect of the film was a bit flat. Not the actors' faults, every performance was effective, but I feel the director let them all down because any tension, conflict or even continuity wasn't followed through to any natural conclusions.

An interesting film, but ultimately not satisfying despite the performances.

Really liked this one. Fantastic editing, good directing and beautiful score and soundtrack. I wanted the story and the script to go further in some areas - and the ending is not the best one - but it's a hell of a promising start for Lauren Hadaway. Great acting by Isabelle Fuhrman! 🙌

The Novice was an interesting film. Any film or movie that shows the downfall of a character intrigues me cause it makes you wonder why it happened. The only problem i had with The Novice was that the plot was rather stagnant. Right off the bat you can see the main character start to get obsessed and while not a terrible thing, having some sort of build up would've been good. Without spoiling anything else, the last thing i'll say is that the ending completely caugth me off guard and left me kind of disappointed becuase i feel like nothing got resolved or nothing got answered. Overall not that bad of a film.

The craftmanship of this film is truly commendable. The camera work and sound design create an immersive experience that plunges the viewer into the protagonist's psyche, producing a potent blend of fear and fascination. In terms of both style and subject matter, it evokes the films of Darren Aronofsky, particularly Pi and Black Swan. If you are a fan of those movies, it is highly likely that you will find this one equally compelling.

This opens with a lot of energy and promise, with an intriguing if unlikeable protagonist obsessively pushing herself to succeed at rowing, of all things. But why?

Well, we never get to learn. There's no twist, no surprises, no big reveal, just a self-harming student behaving like a crazy lady for an hour and a half and then the credits roll. There's no exploration of how she got to such a pathetic state or what is driving her to do any of what she does. All that is rejected in favour of endless aerial shots of slow motion canoes, so I can only conclude the filmmakers didn't know what they were doing or what they wanted to say. By the end this all becomes terribly annoying, pointless, empty and dull. The talented lead actress deserved much better.

Novice takes rowing and obsession and makes it incredible. Her drive to be the best is incredibly intense and the cinematography and music are spot on. Her manic way of pursuing life draws you in.

Consider how many movies have been done about female amateurs who wanted to compete in a specific form of artistic expression (like dancing) or a specific form of competition (the recent releases on chess and MMA come to mind). How many of those are there? Hundreds. Now narrow down that list to movies about rowing. Suddenly the list gets a heck of a lot smaller. Now narrow it down one more time to movies about a female rowing wannabee who, like the character in 1993's RUDY, is undersized for the sport but wants to succeed anyway. Now you are down to a very small list indeed. The good news is that Lauren Hadaway's THE NOVICE easily makes the top of that list, boasting direction and editing that easily punch above the film's own weight class. (Editing in particular is astonishing). The bad news that, for many viewers, those accomplishments may not be enough. At the end of the day, THE NOVICE itself makes the team but fails to take the audience to the finish line.

I got tired really fast of the obsessive little girl trying too hard to be good at everything, the writer/director just shoves it down your throat, over and over. Cut scenes and we hear a mantra repeated over and over as it goes on in this character's head. Ok, we get it. That doesn't mean making the audience hear endless chants makes for a good film.

All in all we never really see her actually row that much, it's all close ups of faces full of beading sweat, before and after scenes and mindfulness with OCD.

Not much action, a few lesbian scenes which is almost a requirement for films featuring athletic women, and a piss poor ending.

When a writer becomes the director is usually turns into a vanity project and this is no different. There is no point and no character arc to the story, more like a day in the life stretched to a full year.