Review of The Novice, directed by Lauren Hadaway

One of my greatest talents, which, if you’re an avid reader of the reviews section of my blog, is procrastinating on books and movies I’ve been meaning to watch for the longest time. I literally get so excited about movies and whatnot, then don’t watch them for years after their release.

I didn’t know about The Novice when it first came out. One day I was scrolling through the cast of the original Hunger Games movie, and then I decided to see what all of them had been doing lately outside of the leads (I surely knew what they all were up to).

Anyways, Isabelle Fuhrman was someone who stuck out to me in the original Hunger Games movie, so I specifically looked at her page first. And she was somewhat busy and I had no idea! It was The Novice that stuck out to me while I was combing through her latest works, so I decided to check it out.

It helped that in 2024 the movie was available on Kanopy, which I had access to through my local library system. So I sat down and watched it after I finished my master’s thesis—I had a lot more free time once that was done.

Let’s get into the review!

A girl joins the rowing team and becomes self-destructive on her path to becoming perfect.

Our main character in this movie is Alex Dall, a freshman at a school called Wellington College. We see her as she takes a physics class, and she keeps taking the same test over and over again, which the teaching assistant calls out as she goes to turn it in. Later on, we discover she just isn’t doing well, but wants to be perfect.

Alex decides that she is going to join the Novice Rowing Program at the school, and after attending the first training session, her obsessive personality begins to take over. It first manifests in her rowing form, which she practices over and over again.

Others are doing the program to get a scholarship, like Jamie. She’s considered the best of the new recruits, and she really needs the scholarship in order to keep going with her education. It’s Alex and Jamie who are brought onto the varsity team eventually, as Alex keeps practicing so much that her grades are dropping.

Alex doesn’t do well when she is in the varsity team, and Jamie does. Alex is awkward and confrontational, so she not only is failing physically with the tasks at hand, but she’s isolated herself from all of her teammates. She doesn’t care, though, even after she knocks herself out in the middle of a race.

She’s bumped down to the novice team again because of it, and is no longer friends with Jamie. There is increasing friction between the two because of Alex’s jealousy.

During a practice, Alex again passes out and pees herself in the process. Another trainer and varsity rower, Erin, tells Alex she probably will not make varsity because of her small stature, and she tells Alex the criteria. This sets her off, and she begins practicing by herself all the time.

The coach, Pete, notices this and confronts her. He thinks she is becoming self-destructive, but then he ends up offering her a scull to keep practicing. She improves and starts a relationship with Dani, her teaching assistant from before, but then has to compete with Jamie for a spot in the top boat.

They are told no, and then Alex’s wound on her hand keeps bleeding. Eventually, it gets infected, but not before Jamie and she compete for a spot left behind by an injured rower. Alex loses, then realizes the team was helping Jamie. She goes after Jamie because of it, and Jamie calls her out for being a silver spoon student. Her relationship with Dani also crumbles because Dani sees how obsessive she is.

No one on the team cares for Alex after this, and when they set a competition, Alex says she will break a record. Alex goes out onto the water, but it begins raining and the storm picks up. The other girls go back, but Alex continues, as she never saw lightining.

She comes back to the building soaking wet, still alive, and everyone watches her in shock as she erases her name from the team chalkboard. She won, so she has nothing else to do here, and leaves.

Overall Thoughts

This certainly was a psychological movie, that is for sure. We see how Alex crumbles deeper into the hole of her mind, basically destroying her academic and social life in the name of success.

We also get a glimpse of her mindset, as she mentions in an argument how she was forcibly put into in-patient psychiatric care after concern by her peers, teachers, and family during high school. She never got to walk her high school graduation because of it.

All in all, it’s pretty sad to watch. I think Fuhrman does a great job in this role, even though there are not a ton of frills to this movie as a whole.

I enjoyed it! I think there was something to learn from this movie, that’s for sure.

Go watch this if you have not already and want to. It might be worth it!

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