12th Fail Review

Vidhu Vinod Chopra adapts Anurag Pathak's book about Manoj Kumar Sharma, who grew up in the Chambal valley, where cheating in school exams was organised by the schools themselves. When a new police officer shuts it down, every student fails, and the officer's advice to Manoj, stop cheating, becomes his creed. The rest follows him to Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar, the coaching district where thousands of aspirants cram for the civil service exam in rented rooms, as he works in a flour mill between study sessions.

The setting is the film's great asset. Chopra cast real aspirants, filmed in the coaching neighbourhoods themselves and put the well-known tutor Vikas Divyakirti on screen as himself, so the tea stalls, shared rooms and failure rates feel documented rather than invented. Vikrant Massey plays Manoj with a stubborn, bewildered decency that never tips into saintliness, and won the National Award for best actor. Anshumaan Pushkar's Gauri, a veteran who failed his last attempt and opened a tea stall called Restart, is the film's best idea.

The underdog beats are familiar, the romance is sweet and schematic, and the background music sometimes does the crying for you. The Hindu called it more earnest than magical, which is fair, and it still took the National Award for best feature film.