The Novice (2021)
Directed by Lauren Hadaway
A college freshman 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.
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4 films that influenced The Novice
What critics say influenced The Novice
Picture the adrenaline-inducing anxiety of Whiplash combined with the relentless nature of Black Swan and you’ll find The Novice fits squarely in the middle of these hyper-intense character studies.
An increasingly pulsating score amplifies the tension, setting a Darren Aronofsky-like mood, putting it in the same heightened state as The Wrestler or Black Swan.
Writer-director Lauren Hadaway has clearly studied the films of Darren Aronofsky, and while many other reviews are making strong comparisons to “Black Swan” – a movie which is still complete and utter trash – the more apt comparison is to “Requiem for a Dream.”
This is not just Black Swan on a boat or Whiplash with water.
The Novice shares narrative and cinematic similarities to films like Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (which Hadaway worked on as sound editor) and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.
There’s an increasing abundance of on-the-nose symbolism, and as Dall’s erratic behavior begins to tilt into full blown psychological horror territory, a pronounced Black Swan influence rears its ungainly head.
Comparisons to Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash are perhaps inevitable, what with such similarly conceived protagonists, but Hadaway’s film owes more to the rat-ta-tat editing rhythms of Darren Aronofsky’s work.
The first involves the similarities between The Novice and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash .
Hadaway, who served as a sound editor on Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, knows a thing or two about the compulsion to be the best.
The Novice shares narrative and cinematic similarities to films like Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (which Hadaway worked on as sound editor) and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.
Damien Chazelle’s 2014 movie “Whiplash” is probably the closest you’d come for comparison, about a jazz drummer who seeks perfection to an obsessive degree, whipped on by his sadistic coach.
The film, which just premiered at Tribeca and won several awards (including a deserved Best Actress for Fuhrman), is Black Swan sluicing the water, The Wrestler via regatta, Pi by port.
The actress who made her impact with the horror film Orphan is reminding everyone that she’s still the real deal, capable of fully submerging into a character, no matter how dark it goes.
But Isabelle Furhman (of Orphan and The Hunger Games fame) has shown a talent for playing the unhinged girl; a talent she takes and runs with in the tense rowing drama The Novice .
Isabelle Fuhrman- the little girl from Orphan !
This tense tale doesn’t invite us to root for Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman, “Orphan,””The Last Thing Mary Saw,” TV’s “Masters of Sex”) or fear for her health and wellbeing.