The Novice  ★★★

ISABELLE Fuhrman isn’t a household name…yet.

The American actress has been around since the early 2000s and is best known for portraying the lead in the 2009 horror film Orphan and its sequel.

But the best performance I have seen from her is in the 2001 psychological sports drama The Novice in which she plays a rower obsessed with proving she is the best and suffering intensely for it.

The film is Lauren Hadaway’s feature directorial debut and she also wrote the script in which freshman Alex Dall (Fuhrman), an already obsessive character, sets her sights on joining her college’s novice rowing program.

Another freshman, Jamie Brill, is the leading candidate for a spot in the program and becomes the object of Alex’s competitive tendencies and increasingly compulsive behaviour, including an excruciating scene where she urinates herself rather than stop taking part in a rowing machine time challenge.

There are some nice visual choices that pay off for Hadaway, some others less so, and she maintains high tension throughout. While the script is strong, it may have benefitted from some more of Alex’s back story.

But the main reason to see The Novice is Fuhrman’s intense, award-winning performance.