Tribeca Film Festival: The Novice: 94 Minute Catharsis
Photo / Video Credit: Courtesy of Tribeca Festival
The Novice, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 13, 2021, follows an obsessive and calculated collegiate rower’s spiraling journey towards rock bottom as she moves up the ranks to Varsity. Lauren Hadaway, director and writer wrote the film based on her own experience as a member of her college rowing team. Hadaway describes the film as her “catharsis,” and there is absolutely no better way to describe it; viewing the film feels as if someone released all of her dizzying, distressing, and sinking emotions onto you in the span of 94 minutes. The 1960s warped music intensifies and mangles as the film progresses while obsessive repetition booms and overlaps, leaving the viewer in a vertigo of exhausting emotions while teetering on the brink of collapse. This is all to say that the film is extremely well done as it takes us into the mind of Lauren Hadaway, which she still has yet to understand herself fully, through Isabelle Fuhrman as Alex Dall.
Photo / Video Credit: Courtesy of Tribeca Festival
Hadaway describes The Novice as a story that is ultimately about grit; however, grit implies some sort of promising end goal. Unlike her teammate Jamie Brill, portrayed in casual brilliance by Amy Forsyth, who is rowing toward a scholarship, Dall is essentially rowing in a never-ending black hole of a whirlpool. Throughout the film, Dall can be seen self-harming, both physically and emotionally. Perhaps, her entire rowing endeavor is a form of self-harm in and of itself. Notably, Dall majors in physics, her worst subject, and struggles to achieve any better than mediocrity. Likewise, Hadaway recounts her personal experience in rowing by stating, “I knew I would never be the best. It wasn’t about being the best.” The viewer is then left labeling her a masochist and wondering why she acts the way she does. The film, however, is not a story of why; there is not much of a backstory, it is a story of a singular experience of a person who cannot be wrapped up into a neat little box.
A prominent attribute of the film is its focus on shapes and close-up shots against a black backdrop that engulfs Dall. In the beginning, Fuhrman as Dall runs down a square spiral staircase, perhaps signaling the start of her mental and physical unraveling. Throughout the film, the camera captures dripping sweat, erratic breaths, and bleeding hands but not in a congratulatory nod to self-dedication, rather a painful montage of the 10,000 dreadful hours it takes to become an expert if that could ever be considered a destination.
Photo / Video Credit: Courtesy of Tribeca Festival
Isabelle Fuhrman, Dilone, and Amy Forsyth are incredible in the film. Fuhrman perfectly captures the soul and body of a human pressure cooker about to explode. are incredible in the film. Fuhrman perfectly captures the soul and body of a human pressure cooker about to explode. Dilone, a high fashion model, makes her feature film debut as the teaching assistant and girlfriend of Fuhrman’s Dall and offers a tender gaze on her feverish partner. Forsyth as Jamie Brill is juxtaposed against Dall as she has rational motivations that paddle her forward. Dall criticizes Brill for “sticking to what she’s good at,” which is a brusquely delivered line that tells you much of what you need to know about Dall’s decisions.
Article by Tessa Swantek, Contributing Editor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Isabella Grieco, Graphic Design, PhotoBook Magazine
