2023 was a big year for Hindi movies with dreadful films like Animal making the money rain on the box office. However, a movie which truly grabs at your heart strings and gives you hope is a shy, unassuming movie like its main character Manoj Sharma, that creeped by the loud and vulgar Animal, to be a sleeper hit at the Indian Box Office. The movie is written and directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, a veteran Indian film director and movie producer, having previously directed Hindi movies like Parinda (1989), 1942: A Love Story (1994) and Mission Kashmir (2000) and produced the amazing Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai movies along with the smash hits 3 Idiots, PK and Sanju.
12th Fail does not boast of a stellar cast and that itself is one of the keys to its success. Vikrant Massey is a talented actor but not yet well recognized despite appearing in the hit Amazon series Mirzapur, the independent drama “A Death in the Gunj” and the movie “Chhapaak”. However, 12th Fail should be considered his breakthrough movie as he truly captures the struggles and the emotions of poor IAS/IPS (Indian civil services) aspirants from the dusty villages of rural India.
Before delving into the movie’s plot, to truly understand the struggle of these students, one must understand the examination which could open the doors of success for them. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is a constitutional body of India that conducts direct recruitment of officers to the All India Services and the Central Civil Services through examinations and appoints officers in various Services under the Government of India. The examination which most of the students sit for is the Civil Services Examination comprised of 2 hours/paper (Prelims), 3 hours/paper (Mains) and 1 Variable duration of personality test. Failure in even 1 stage requires repeating the exam again. A person generally gets 6 attempts. The Indian Civil Services Examination is one of the most difficult competitive examinations not just India but across the world, with more than a million candidates every year. A single attempt can take two complete years of preparation – one year before the prelims and one year from the prelims to the interview. On an average, 900,000 to 1,000,000 candidates apply every year and the number of candidates sitting in the preliminary examination is approximately 550,000. The passing rate for the exam is a mere 0.157%.
Alright now that I have helped you understand the difficulty of this examination, let me talk about the movie’s central character – Manoj Sharma. Born in one of the poorest regions of India – the Chambal valley – more famous for its dacoits than anything else, Manoj has only seen honest people struggle and where no business can be conducted without bribes and where the police routinely harass the poor who have no one to protect them. His own father loses his job for standing up against corrupt practices at work. In his school, cheating at examinations is not only allowed but encouraged by the teachers. However, Manoj’s life changes when a new honest and tough policeman comes to his village – DSP Dushyant Singh who not only stops cheating at his school (causing all the students in the village to fail their 12th Grade examinations that year), but also gives Manoj the advice to “not cheat in life to become successful“, as he helps free Manoj’s brother from a false smuggling allegation by the corrupt politician who runs the area.
One year later, Manoj passes his exams without cheating and pursues a B.A. to become a DSP. His paternal grandmother gives him all her savings as he sets out to study in Gwalior, but he loses all his belongings on the way to a woman who steals them while he dozes off in the bus he is travelling in. He then comes to know that the government has decided to stop the Group I exams for MPPSC for the next three years. This destroys his dream of becoming a DSP. He roams around the streets until he is about to faint, but a local hotel owner near the local railway station feeds him. There he meets Pritam Pandey, who had also come to study for the PSC exam. Pandey’s father calls him and tells him to prepare for the UPSC exam in Delhi. Manoj learns about UPSC and travels with Pritam to Delhi to study and become an IPS officer. In Delhi, he meets Gauri – who is referred to as Gauri Bhaiya (elder brother), a fellow aspirant on his last attempt to pass, who provides Manoj with work and a place to study. Gauri Bhaiya is unable to clear his final attempt and opens a tea shop named “Restart” and also provides guidance to other UPSC aspirants.
In his first attempt, Manoj fails the preliminary examination, but with Gauri’s help, he reappears and manages to clear it the following year. Manoj works at a library during this time, cleaning dusty books, toilets and the library while also serving tea at Gauri’s shop. During a visit to a coaching centre, he meets Shraddha Joshi, a UKPSC aspirant, and falls in love with her. She assumes him to be an aeronautical engineer, and he doesn’t clarify that he is a literature graduate. Despite his hard work, Manoj fails to clear his main examinations that year; his relationship with Shraddha also suffers when she learns of his deception. Disheartened, Manoj travels all the way to Mussoorie to apologize to Shraddha and confess his love. She advises him to return to Delhi and continue preparing. Instead, Manoj visits his home and finds that his grandmother has passed away and the family is in dire financial straits with his elder brother working as a daily wage labourer in a nearby town. He returns to Delhi, determined to pass the examination.
Frustrated with Manoj’s stubborn nature causing him to work in a dilapidated flour mill for 15 hours a day, Gauri moves Manoj to his own house and tells him to give up working odd jobs and focus completely on his studies. He finally clears the main examinations, while Shraddha clears her UKPSC examinations as well to become a Deputy Collector. Meanwhile, Pritam, who failed his exams, spreads rumours to Shraddha’s family that she has been sleeping with Manoj. Manoj becomes very angry with Pritam but he still helps get Pritam released from jail (unlawfully imprisoned by a corrupt cop) but then realizes that Pritam really wants to be a reporter, but his father pressured him to pursue the UPSC and is unable to tell his father the same. Manoj advises Pritam to stand up to his father.
During the interview round, Manoj answers every question honestly despite the chief examiner being biased against Manoj for his non-English speaking background. He reads the letter written and given to him by Shraddha before the interview, asking him to marry her, irrespective of the outcome of the interview. Two months later, the results are declared and Shraddha drags Manoj to the results, even though Manoj who felt the bias of the examiners, has little hope for success. Manoj however, ends up qualifying for the rank of IPS officer, with the other examiners being impressed by his honesty and his strong values. One year later, Manoj, now an IPS officer, meets DSP Dushyant Singh at the police station in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, India to thank the DSP for encouraging him. Manoj marries Shraddha, and Pritam begins working as a news reporter.
A powerful movie driven by a powerful performance by Vikrant Massey. The supporting cast, though full of unknowns except Manoj’s grandma, also give a decent performance making it feel less like a movie but more like a glimpse into the real struggle of these poor aspirants. 12th Fail is available for streaming on Netflix.
JAY’S VERDICT
12th Fail is a movie driven by Vikrant Massey’s powerful performance capturing the struggle of poor students who have no privilege in life but are carried to the top only by their hard work and their determination to succeed at all costs. Watch it today and be thankful for your own life, which you probably don’t appreciate enough.
