I was totally sold on the trailers for this film, and went to the cinema really wanting to love it. It looked like the kind of thing i'm into. But I was disappointed. I think fundamentally the film just didn't know what it was meant to be. Tonally it felt like 3 films in one.

I didn't understand what the motivations of the main character were. She's meant to be this obsessive, narcissist type, who will go to extremes and even hurt herself to achieve greatness. The problem in this film is that there wasn't any credible background to the character to convince me of the legitimacy of her obsessive nature. Maybe a bad parent or sibling relationship resulting in her seeking approval elsewhere would've been a more convincing story. There's meant to be tension between the main character and an antagonist character, but I didn't really pick up on that until the last 3rd of the film.

At the start of the film the main character is shown to be broody, dark, quiet, super obsessive. But then in the next scenes she's having booksmart-esq banter with her friend. It just felt contrived and weird. There were a bunch of scenes where her character felt totally inconsistent. I feel like it's okay for stories to have characters who exhibit challenging or unexpected behaviours, but in the case of this lead, the weird erratic behaviour just didn't make any sense. It's almost as if the writer didn't do the old test of sitting back and thinking, "would someone actually do or say this in real life"? No-one asked that question at any point during the making of this movie. The self-harm scenes particularly were totally contrived and almost gratuitous on the part of the filmmakers, which I found pretty insulting frankly.

I also didn't know who any of the characters were. There were a couple of occasions in the film when characters were audibly named with the intention of provoking an emotional response - but I didn't know who those names corresponded to on screen, so any impact was completely lost. There were three blonde stereotypical white girl characters that ALL LOOKED THE SAME. They weren't introduced and I didn't understand what part any of them played in the story. The 'Coach Edwards', 'Groundman', and 'Erin' characters might as well have been the same person as far as I was concerned. Utterly confusing. There's also a character at the start called 'Winona' (I only know that thanks to IMDb) who basically disappears and has nothing to do with the story past the 20 minute mark.

I feel like the film fundamentally was telling the story from the point of view of the wrong character. The Brill character was far more compelling and had something to lose by not being the best rower. Dall had nothing to lose and no motivation, so I just didn't buy her. A much more interesting story would've been a girl who had a lot to lose by failing in competition with a girl who had nothing to lose, but was obsessive out of spite. There were hints of that but it wasn't really fully explored.

The climax wasn't really a climax. There wasn't really any resolution. They did a race in the lightning and not a lot really happened. The main character didn't change or transform in any way.

The editing was pretty weird. Not in a kind of cool, arthouse kind of weird, in a more - 'was this intentional?' - kind of weird. The 'stylistic' editing choices killed the story flow in many scenes. The pacing was way off. It felt contrived and uncomfortable. The sound design did this also. The trick of 'character becomes distant and detached from reality so let's low pass everything and cut in a tinnitus sound' was used no less than about 20 times. Fun and interesting the first time, I can buy it the second, but after that it just becomes tiresome. In parts it intentionally detaches the audience from the story, which is just confusing and unhelpful, especially when the story needed all the help it could get. The music was tired and unoriginal. Again - play an old soul tune to juxtapose the harsh imagery once, and I'll dig it. Twice and it's fine. Beyond that it's tired and unoriginal. This film entertained that trope about 5 times.

But what was good about it? SURELY something. The performances weren't awful. I loved the Dani character and felt that relationship subplot was more compelling that the main storyline. The cinematography was pretty cool in places. That's about all I've got for positives. It felt like a first draft screenplay turned into a feature.

I didn't know much about the sport of rowing and this depiction of the Ginormous amount of blood, sweat, tears, dedication and sacrifice of these athletes left me awestruck!! :O It was a well done story, that cuts to the bone and sad to see the extreme obsession of the main character and a trip and stumble down the rabbit hole into crazytown.

Half way thru watching I remembered what that B*TCH that played Aunt Becky on Full House did to get her daughter into a college that the kid didn't even want to go to. Photo shopping her into rowing equipment and such. Stealing a spot from a REAL and DESERVING Athlete, who loves the sport and maybe needing a scholarship to be able to even go to college. MAkes me SICK!!! Sorry, but her and her husband shoulda got WAY MORE JAIL time.

I tip my hat to the REAL women athletes that compete in this sport, because it sure ain't for Sissys!! :O I felt sore and out of breath just watching them!

Definitely worth a watch!!

Novice takes rowing and obsession and makes it incredible. Her drive to be the best is incredibly intense and the cinematography and music are spot on. Her manic way of pursuing life draws you in.