Starring:
Isabelle Fuhrman, Amy Forsyth, Dilone
Directed By:
Lauren Hadaway
Written By:
Lauren Hadaway
Alex Dall joined her university’s rowing team with an obsessive physical and psychological drive to make it to the top. Intent on outperforming her teammates, Alex pushes herself to her limits, but will the drive she has to become great alienate her from the rest of the team and people she cares about? Director Lauren Hadaway does an incredible job of showing the toxic approach to following your passions, and with her writing and the powerful and heartbreaking performance by Isabelle Fuhrman, It’s no wonder ‘The Novice’ was a winner at Tribeca 2021.
I love delving into a competitive world that I wasn’t familiar with. With rowing, the only knowledge I had was that it was used by famous people to get their kids into pristine colleges, and the Winklevoss twins were really good at it. Isabelle Fuhrman’s character is new to this world and pushes herself noticeably harder than anyone else right off the bat. The film immediately references that this is a team sport and that individual work was good but it took the team to compete.
Fuhrman’s character cannot socialize in a healthy way with her teammates, and instead of working on that delves deeper into what she can control her training. I loved this performance and think we’ll be seeing much more of her in the future. The writing by Lauren Hadaway is gripping; her story is cold, mesmerizing, and tragic, but you completely relate and understand where the emotions are coming from.
If you love movies like ‘Black Swan’, ‘Whiplash’, then this is right up your alley. It can sometimes feel too distant for you to really connect with the characters, but the story and writing make that easy to overlook.
Tribeca At Home
For the first time ever, Tribeca Film Festival is hosting #TribecaAtHome where you can experience the festival from the comfort of your couch!
With a robust lineup of exciting new films, shorts, and documentaries planned, #TribecaAtHome will also include an immersive showcase of 14 VR selections, various podcasts, and game programming.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/tickets
