Motion Picture Reviews and Insights- Vaishali Adwant

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail is a tale of resilience, grit, humility, and never say die attitude. Manoj(Vikrant Massey) is a destitute boy living in a village of bandits, Chambal, develops a concrete goal to become a cop inspired by the ethics of his father and DSP Dushyant Singh(Priyanshu Chatterjee). As he is growing, he witnesses how his father has paid the price of living an honest life battling corruption.

He leaves his village in the hope of passing the toughest exam, UPSC and lands in Madhya Pradesh where his belongings gets stolen. Manoj decides to stay and pursue his dreams instead of going back to his village and meets Pritam Pandey(Anant Vijay Joshi) who gives him food and a place to crash. Manoj’s destiny is juggling between help that comes to him and obstacles he has to overcome.

Manoj’s journey is an inspiring life lesson that speaks of his honest efforts and struggle beating all odds and making it through. He meets Shraddha(Medha Shankar) and falls in love with her but unlike most young lads does not waste his time day dreaming or chasing her. He instead focuses on his work and exam singularly slogging for 15 hours to make ends meet and studying for rest of the time leaving him a 3 hours of sleep. Pritam plays a significant role of a true friend who is always there to encourage him coming from a well-settled family.

Pritam is disinterested in passing the exam. He wants to be in front of the camera, yet keeps making failed attempts studying for the exam halfheartedly because his father pressurizes him to do so. Manoj learns that he has to polish his English to get better results and struggles to do the same. Every step he takes getting closer to his goals, he faces newer challenges which he is determined to overcome.

Vikrant Massey’s heartfelt performance is going to make this film one of the most revered films. Anant Joshi and Medha have given stupendous performances. Every character in the film has flawlessly performed. Vidhu Vinod Chopra comes with inspiring buzzwords with his films such as ‘All Is Well,’ in 3 Idiots and ‘Restart’ in 12th Fail. We cannot draw parallels between Hritik Roshan’s Super 30 and 12th Fail though both the films show similar struggles about poor students trying to make it big. But 12th Fail wins our hearts because it teaches us never to give up in the phase of failures and obstacles.

A small budget movie with honest filmmaking and a story that moves us at deeper levels. It is a testimony that Bollywood does not need a 250 crore budget to win the hearts of the audience.