12th Fail (2023)

 

12^th Fail (2023)

Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Producers: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Yogesh Ishwar

Cast: Vikrant Massey (Manoj), Medha Shankar (Shraddha), Anant V Joshi (Pritam)

BASED ON A TRUE STORY

An inspiring and thrilling story, 12^th Fail is a great movie, sure to move you.

Manoj Kumar Sharma is a young boy living in a village in the poverty-stricken Chambal region in Madhya Pradesh, ready to give his 12^th grade exams. Manoj’s parents and grandmother are strict Indians who do not believe in corruption, and Manoj’s father is embroiled in a case of threatening a government official. Manoj used chits, and so do his friends and the entire class, as it is an entrenched system of corruption enforced by the school and the local MLA as he wishes all students to pass. The class’s cheating is foiled by the DSP, which makes the entire class fail, including Manoj. Afterwards, Manoj’s brother is caught on false charges and is kept in prison by the police, while later, the DSP Dushyant Singh frees Manoj’s brother and sacks the policeman responsible for arresting Manoj’s brother. Inspired by the DSP, Manoj asks him how he can be like the DSP. Dushyant advises Manoj to ‘stop cheating.’

Manoj legitimately studies and passes the 12^th exam next year, and wishes to become a DSP like Dushyant, and heads to Gwalior to study for the exam, using the money his grandmother secretly saved over the years. However, Manoj gets robbed on the way there, and loses all his possessions and money, alone and penniless in a new city. He runs into Pritam Pandey, another boy stranded there. Pritam tells Manoj about the UPSC and the IPS, and swiftly agrees to take Manoj to Delhi to study with him. He meets Gauri Bhaiya who is on his last attempt to clear the examination and provides Manoj with job opportunities and a place to study. The interview results come for Gauri Bhaiya, and it is revealed that he has failed, meaning that he will now never become an IPS officer.

Deciding to move on, Gauri Bhaiya opens a coaching institute and tea stall named 'Restart' and provides his services for free. Want to know more? Watch the movie!

This is the first time I’ve ever felt so inspired by a movie, that was based on true events. Nothing felt exaggerated, everything felt grounded in reality. Manoj’s character was very well played, all of his aspects felt true. The characters weren’t fully white-and-black, they weren’t extremely true all the time, their flaws were shown onscreen instead of being just left to be mentioned offscreen. This is the closest a movie made for profit has come to being an art movie.

I absolutely wholeheartedly recommend 12^th Fail because:

1.      The character development.

2.      Unlike most other biopics, this seemed fully grounded in reality, without being immensely overblown.

3.      The acting was great, this movie didn’t rely on bankrolling famous stars. I foresee the actors to be future acting stars.

4.      This movie struck the balance between traditional Bollywood tropes and earnest innovation.

5.      Overall, this movie is very heart touching.