The Novice (2021), by Lauren Hadaway
I have a problem with sports movies, and that’s exactly why I was excited to see “The Novice”, a sports movie unlike most of this sub-genre. My problem with sports movies is that they often focus on overcoming: athletes and coaches overcoming obstacles, disbelief and themselves. But there is a thin line between overcoming obstacles and taking a real risk, something I wish more movies would address – and that’s the case with “The Novice”.
Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a novice at her university’s rowing team. She becomes obsessed with the sport, in order to make it to the top varsity boat. She starts focusing only on rowing, takes notes obsessively, harms herself and pushes to the limit. Her obsession will harm her friendships,as she chooses to alienate everyone to focus on her obsession, and her relationship with a singer.
Even if you’re not familiar with rowing, it’s not difficult to follow the plot. The races are particularly exciting, thanks to the great editing. If you have just watched rowing, as a bystander, you will be surprised, as director Lauren Hadaway warns:
“The Novice isn’t a realistic depiction of rowing. At least from the bystander’s point of view. Rowing looks elegant. Easy. Boring. It’s the ultimate con. Because when you’re in a boat sprinting for seven minutes straight, when your legs are turning to blocks, when your vision is tunneling to a pinpoint, when you’re swallowing your own puke to keep from missing a stroke, when you’ve lost control of your bladder, when your body is rippling in chills, on the edge of exercise-induced orgasm, rowing is anything but beautiful.”
Two recent productions came to my mind while I was watching “The Novice”: “Whiplash” and “Slalom”. “Whiplash” and “The Novice” share the similarity of having a lead that goes beyond in order to achieve perfection in what they do – music in “Whiplash”, sport in “The Novice”. Of course, there is an unforgettable tyrannical teacher pushing the lead of “Whiplash”, while in “The Novice” one of the coaches even tells Alex to take it easy.
“Slalom” is a French film about skiing. In it, Lyz, a 15-year-old, trains at a ski academy to be a top athlete and finds in her male coach a supporter and also an abuser. It shares the somber looks with “The Novice”, as well as the clever quick editing. Unlike Alex, Lyz craves for the attention of an adult – any adult, even her sinister coach, will do – but, like Alex, for Lyz winning in the sport may mean losing herself.
Unlike Damien Chazelle – director of “Whiplash” – and Charlène Favier – director of “Slalom” – the director of “The Novice”, Lauren Hadaway (who was a sound editor in “Whiplash”), was inspired by her own trajectory as a competitive collegiate rower to make the movie. She calls the film her catharsis, because for fours years, during college, rowing became the only important thing in her life. She says:
“There are countless films about creatives getting consumed by their art, or athletes sacrificing everything for the big game, but I’ve yet to see a film about a gritty person spiraling into madness in pursuit of a gritty endeavor. (…) The rowing scenes grow progressively more surreal, and many feature 1960s love songs which twist and warp as the film spirals. This is because this film is essentially a love story between 18-year old Alex Dall and a sport she gets sucked into by chance.”
Something the director also highlights is that 95% of the crew was female, and there is a queer love story subplot – one that I wish we could have seen more of. Lead Isabelle Fuhrman is very good in the scenes about intimacy, as good as she is in the rowing scenes, for which she trained exhaustively, gaining ten pounds of muscle. All the effort is already proving worthwhile: Fuhrman received the Best Actress award at the Tribeca Film Festival, where “The Novice” was chosen Best US Narrative Feature Film. The film also received five nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards.
The press kit defines “The Novice” as “a coming of age psychological thriller that examines the light and dark side of perseverance in the pursuit of excellence and hits heavily on themes of female empowerment and conquest.” I’m not a fan of coming of age movies nor uplifting sports movies, but I enjoyed “The Novice” immensely. Better defined as “a queer version of Whiplash”, it is a film about an abusive relationship between a girl and a sport, a film that shows us that we can be our worst enemies.
