Review of The Novice (2021) by Scraper — 05 Jan 2022

The utter stylishness of the Novice will generate a lot of buzz but that's ultimately it's biggest downfall. I love movies that want to go someplace raw and not hold back. The Novice goes there but with so much frenetic camerawork and montage after montage it seems more like a music video.

Movies like this actually end up suffocating it's characters rather than fleshing them out completely. Alex's dialogue is great but she rarely gets to speak or have conversations. The overabundance of cuts never lets a scene speak for itself, constantly only giving the audience flashes.

Unfortunately it seems like a lot of b-roll. The ending sputters as if to say "We've put you through the ringer already. Roll credits.