“The Novice” is a dark-side-of-sports thriller.
It’s a movie, like “Personal Best” or “Prefontaine,” that a lot of star athletes will probably be able to relate to, but it’s also a movie for anyone who ever felt existentially uncomfortable in gym class.
The central character — and that’s no exaggeration, since her moody, relentless thousand-yard stare anchors every scene — is Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman), a freshman at Wellington University, an overcast dystopian oasis of modernist concrete slabs, who decides to join the rowing team there.
She’s not looking for an athletic scholarship (she was second in her high-school class and has won a full ride), and it’s a sport she has no experience in.
At first, as she buckles down and starts her Erg workouts, strapping herself into a rowing machine that measures the amount of work being done, she seems as physically self-conscious and out-of-sorts
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