What a movie !!! No, what a life !!!
We watched this movie titled 12th Fail as many of our friends said it’s a good one. Little did we realise that it was a true story. The bigger surprise was that the movie was produced and directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra …. I have liked only three movies of his where he was the writer and producer, Parineeta, Munnabhai MBBS and 3 Idiots. That he was part of the iconic “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron” is new information for me. Anyway, 12th Fail is a brilliant piece of work and deserves all the accolades that it gets and will get.
12th Fail – The Story
This movie recounts the real life story of IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma. Vikrant Massey the actor who portrays his character on screen is an excellent choice and delivers the role beautifully. Manoj Kumar Sharma is a boy from a village in Chambal, Madhya Pradesh. He flunks his 12th std exams after the new DSP Dushyant Singh (Priyanshu Chatterjee), prevents cheating in the board exams.
It’s a sad reality that teachers enable cheating to ensure the school gets 100% results every year. While these “incidents” have reduced but they haven’t been done away with fully.
Manoj is very impressed with the DSP and decides to become a police officer by clearing the UPSC exams. He manages to clear his 12th std exams the following year and after several adventures manages to reach Delhi. Again, the “IAS Coaching” industry is beautifully depicted in the movie. There are coaching institutes that pay money to the topper to say he/she passed out of their institute. Then there are good samaritans who provide free tuitions.
Manoj Kumar Sharma has the fire but not the academic credentials and “style” to make it through UPSC. He juggles menial jobs to survive in Delhi and does clear the exams in his fourth and final attempt. He is supported in his endeavour by his mentor (Anshuman Pushkar), friends and his girlfriend Shraddha Joshi (played by Medha Shankar).
The UPSC interview itself is a brilliant piece of acting and directing. We clearly see that the interview panel is biased against Manoj Kumar Sharma because he doesn’t speak fluently in English. 🙄. Our mental slavery just continues !!! Manoj asks for a glass of water and he then requests that it be poured into a steel tumbler as he doesn’t drink from a glass tumbler. One of the panelists gets irritated by saying what’s the difference ? And Manoj responds by saying “Language, is just a means of communication a means to an end, not the end itself”.
This movie must be watched by all school going children and also grown ups who give up too quickly.
In fact, one of the sessions in ShikshaDaan‘s Student Mentoring Program is on Grit. This movie will definitely become part of the content for that session.
Do read Vikrant Massey’s ’12th Fail’: This IPS-IRS Couple Inspired the Movie.
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