12th Fail Review (2023)

12th Fail has the emotional rawness of a masala film and the subtlety that a masala film doesn’t have. Probably one of the few films that can actually be called as a contemporary film, 12th Fail follows Manoj Kumar, a poor and struggling boy from Chambal, who aspires to become an IPS officer by cracking the toughest exams that India regularly throws at us: UPSC.

There are 2 scene that perfectly showcase in a matter of seconds the world that Manoj is a part of in the opening sections of the film: The first shot, which is a wide shot, which unbrokenly pans/tilts and finally shows us Manoj from afar, sitting on the roof of his house. What we see in those wides are barren lands and forests and the simple fact that a man is studying on his house’s roof in between all of this, tells you all about Manoj and his economic condition. The 2nd shot is a mid-shot which gradually widens to reveal a police car in front of the van that Manoj and his brother drive (for conducting a business) while behind the police is a bus which contains the men who had troubled Manoj and his brother in the previous scene. This shot while showing them, gradually continues to go wide and wide, as if just like how these brothers are trapped with these goons, who use the police as their middlemen, the entire village is also trapped.

As a result, what director Vidhu Vinod Chopra is able to do is, easily transport us to the next section of the story; the exam portion. Having a cinematography, that has the energy of a young child comparable to Manoj’s enthusiasm, it is fascinating that the first time we see Manoj fail, it is just at 45 mins. And the very fact that the film does this so fast, means that we quickly get used to the fact that failing is not important. What you do later, in response to that, matters. And there starts the” Restart” song, which is also the name of the tea stall that Gouri Bhaiya, an ex-UPSC aspirant runs, to support the aspirants. In this, we also get a “sachhi” love story, patriotism, honesty and all the essential masala flavours i.e. tropes.

Take for example the scene where Manoj comes back to his village after failing his 2nd attempt, to realise that his Grandma is dead. We do not get the loud sadness, but the quite sadness and angst, which happens between Manoj and his mother. Or the scene where Manoj’s grandma says that she wouldn’t part with her pension money. The scene itself is captured as a convo between Manoj’s mom, grandmom and father. And after a long time of using single takes to show conversations, VVC suddenly uses a shot reverse shot to show this conversation, essentially showing their own separation of dynamic.

Even in the tense and brilliant suspenseful interview sequence, we see Manoj come inside the room in a top angle shot as he eventually joins the rest of them in a single unbroken shot, establishing that, what we are saying is not only Manoj’s story, but also the story of so many other individuals.

The editing and sound design in this sequence, create a brilliant sense of tension that really conveys to us the feelings that Manoj is feeling. And even the scene where we see Manoj coming into the Delhi city for the first time, we get a stream of images cut in such a way, that it effectively gives us a headache and confusion, similar to what Manoj himself feels in that situation.

There are though, somethings. First is that, invariably being a biopic film, the genre structure of raise-fall-raise is reused here. But that is not the problem. What is, is that, by boxing a life into the confines of a story, what happens is, the idea that whatever happens is “written in his destiny” and stuff like that seems to arise. Maybe whatever shown has been taken word by word from the real-life story and may be ultimately true, but the idea of the callbacks, especially causes this thing. Another thing is that, we see Manoj give an impassioned speech about having coming all the way till there without any support as compared to IIT toppers, but without the support of his future wife, his friends etc, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Yes, I understand that, he means “support” in a different sense here, but my feeling to that still stands.

But like the film and its real story, I can’t but give this review a positive ending: 12th Fail is a showcase that people will watch “non action massy large-scale film”, if the subject matter and its treatment is honest and stands as a blueprint for a proper masala film.