12th Fail

Manoj Kumar Sharma grows up in a village in the Chambal region of Uttar Pradesh. Cheating at school was normal; when a police superintendent arrives and enforces honesty in the exam hall, Manoj fails his twelfth year. Then he decides to become like that officer and goes to Delhi. To prepare for the civil service exam he works in a print shop, a library and a flour mill. The subject is not success but repetition. Manoj sits the exam again and again and loses; the real subject is not the moment of passing but what he feels starting the fourth attempt. The form is unshowy: real locations, natural light, handheld camera. The Mukherjee Nagar scenes were shot in the actual Delhi neighbourhood where the country's exam preparation economy is concentrated. The source is Anurag Pathak's book about the life of Manoj Kumar Sharma, a real person who did eventually join the Indian Police Service. The story of his wife Shraddha Joshi is in the film too. Vidhu Vinod Chopra directs, and the film opened slowly in India and grew at the box office by word of mouth. Vikrant Massey plays Manoj and Medha Shankr plays Shraddha. Who it is for: viewers who like true stories of struggle. Who it is not for: anyone expecting criticism of the exam system itself; the film does not question it, it describes surviving inside it.