THE NOVICE
★★★
OUT 1 APRIL / CERT TBC / 94 MINS
DIRECTOR Lauren Hadaway
CAST Isabelle Fuhrman, Amy Forsyth, Dilone, Jonathan Cherry, Kate Drummond
Lauren Hadaway’s stylish, self-assured debut roughly follows the recent trend for thrillers about obsession at the top; swap out the ballet shoes of Black Swan or drums of Whiplash for the oars of a female college rowing team and you’re not far off. Interestingly, Hadaway worked as a sound editor on Damien Chazelle’s film, and she brings an inventive, collage approach to editing and sound design here, reflecting her character’s fanatical quest for rowing perfection. It doesn’t entirely escape the pages of the psychodrama playbook (shots of trembling, bleeding hands are very Whiplash-esque), and character motivations are deliberately murky to a fault, but the nervy, wholly committed central performance from rising star Isabelle Fuhrman sells the psychological chaos.