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Movie Review: 12th Fail (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch 12th Fail on Hulu

Even though 12th Fail is based on the life of a real person, the film feels abstracted from its main character. The story contains a number of obstacles that can trip up viewers unfamiliar with the hiring processes of the Indian civil service.

Vikrant Massey plays Manoj Kumar Sharma, who grew up in a poor, rural village but studied and sacrificed to become a member of the Indian Police Service (IPS). Obviously, the movie doesn’t need to explain what the IPS is to Indian viewers, but it’s not made clear to outsiders how, say, an IPS officer differs from a DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police). The film uses a lot of abbreviations that blur together for those not steeped in the shorthand.

The story begins in 1997 when Manoj is a teenager in Chambal. The area is known for its bandits, and the mayor runs the village on bribes and corruption. Newly transferred DSP Dushyant Singh (Priyanshu Chatterjee) arrests the school principal for encouraging students to cheat on their exams. Manoj is so inspired by the righteous DSP that he vows to study and become an IPS officer.

Even Manoj is surprised at just how labyrinthine the process to become an Indian civil servant is — and just how small the odds of success are. After passing high school, there are multiple exams: some multiple choice, some essay, including some in English. Students get four total attempts to pass the exams, and that’s it. If they pass their exams, they still have to clear a brutal final interview.

The process can take years to complete, which makes it hard for anyone who has to work while studying. Everyone who takes the tests pays for exam coaching, further weeding out many poor and working class applicants.

Manoj heads to the city of Gwailor to pursue coaching, only to be robbed before finding the coaching center shut down. He gets lucky when he meets Pritam Pandey (Anant V Joshi), another prospective student. Pritam’s family has money, so he takes Manoj with him to Delhi. The two stay friends even as Manoj works a series of low-wage jobs, studying into the wee hours of the night.

Writer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes Pritam the narrator of Manoj’s story, which creates a distance between the audience and the main character. As the narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that the character Manoj portrays in the film is mostly a generic symbol of underprivileged test takers–and not an interesting character, himself. As Manoj’s lower caste friend Gauri (Anshumann Pushkar) says, “Even if one of us wins, the whole herd wins.” But if we don’t care about the one, it’s that much more difficult to be invested in the herd.

Despite featuring Manoj’s friends and eventual girlfriend Shraddha (Medha Shankar), it doesn’t feel like we get much insight into Manoj. He’s determination personified, but that’s about it. Massey’s performance in the lead role is solid.

In addition to the movie’s characterization issues, the studying and test-taking processes are shown in greater detail than is necessary, bogging down the pace.

The real Manoj’s accomplishments are inspirational, but 12th Fail itself is a bit dull.

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Movie Review: Cobalt Blue (2022)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Cobalt Blue on Netflix

Authors don’t often direct the movie versions of their books, and perhaps with good reason. The Netflix Original film Cobalt Blue — based on a novel written by Sachin Kundalkar, who also directed the movie — could have benefited from an outsider’s perspective.

The story takes place in 1996 in Kerala. Literature student Tanay (Neelay Mehendale) lives with his grandparents, parents, brother Aseem (Anant V Joshi), and sister Anuja (Anjali Sivaraman). When the grandparents die, Tanay’s parents rent their vacant room to a paying guest, who is never named (played by Prateik Babbar).

The Guest is an artsy beefcake, prone to shirtlessness. His looks draw the admiration of Anuja and the other young women in the neighborhood, as well as Tanay. The Guest correctly interprets Tanay’s constant hovering as romantic interest, and the two have sex. Tanay is in love, but the Guest is coy about his feelings.

Meanwhile, Tanay’s parents are trying to find a groom for tomboy Anuja. She wants to take her field hockey career to the next level, but her parents insist that she start looking and acting like their idea of a proper lady.

While I’ve not read the book on which Cobalt Blue is based, I suspect much of the dialogue is taken directly from it, because it sounds like dialogue written to be read, and not actually spoken. Few of the conversations in the film actually sound conversational. Most lines are delivered with flat affect and punctuated with unnatural dramatic pauses.

The performances across the board are quite stiff, but none more so than that by Mehendale as Tanay. His posture and gait are so rigid as to make Buckingham Palace guards look relaxed by comparison. On top of that, some of his facial expressions — especially in the final shot of the film — are plain odd.

This is Mehendale’s first film, but his inexperience isn’t solely to blame for his awkward performance. That’s on the director, who should have given him better guidance. Kundalkar himself is not new behind the camera, with eight Marathi and Hindi films under his belt before this one.

Considering that Kundalkar wrote the book on which this movie based and adapted the screenplay himself, it’s reasonable to conclude that this is precisely the film he wanted to make. But its flaws feel like issues that could have been rectified by someone with a fresh perspective — someone who hasn’t had these characters in his head for more than two decades. The film has interesting things to say about the loneliness of being gay in a time before widespread internet access. The story isn’t the problem, just the way it’s presented.

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