Vidhu Vinod Chopra takes ordinary ambitions seriously, writing stories in which studying and finding work deserve our attention. We find his optimism moving, though his scripts tend to keep teaching after the point has been made.
Fi1m perspective
In 12th Fail (2023), preparing for the civil service examinations is treated as an undertaking worth a film, rather than something to get through before the story starts. Chopra gives Manoj’s studying weight because a job could change his life. We were moved by Vikrant Massey’s performance, which makes that hope matter without needing the repeated assurances that hard work is good for us. This is a writer worth spending an evening with, provided we can tolerate being told a little too often what to think.
He wrote and directed the crime drama Parinda (1989) before shifting towards producing and co-writing in the early 2000s. A story credit on Munna Bhai MBBS (2003) marked his first major collaboration with Rajkumar Hirani. On 3 Idiots (2009), he shares screenplay duties with Hirani and Abhijat Joshi, finding warmth and humour in friendship with help from Aamir Khan. The slow start is a substantial drawback. Hirani also edits, and the early jumps in time interrupt our attempts to get to know the characters.
Writing and directing 12th Fail, Chopra gives Manoj’s pursuit the attention it deserves, but struggles to leave its meaning alone. He and Jaskunwar Kohli adapt Anurag Pathak’s novel and share the editing credit, yet leave too many reminders about persistence and the wrongness of cheating. Cinematographer Rangarajan Rambadran gives Massey room to register Manoj’s effort, making the film’s encouragement easier to accept. Shantanu Moitra’s music is less helpful when it presses hope upon scenes in which the acting has already supplied it. A quieter score and a shorter cut would have let us attend to Massey without quite so much prompting.
The harder question in 12th Fail is what happens to people who work just as diligently and still do not get a chance. Chopra’s confidence in perseverance leaves too little room for them, and that limits how much we accept his account of success. Even so, treating an ordinary person’s ambition with this much care is worth something. For an evening when some encouragement would be welcome, we would choose 12th Fail and forgive a few of the lectures.
Biography
Vidhu Vinod Chopra is an Indian film director, screenwriter, producer and editor. He trained at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. His early short films include Murder at Monkey Hill (1976), which won a National Film Award, and the documentary An Encounter with Faces (1978), nominated for an Academy Award.
Chopra founded Vinod Chopra Films. He is known for directing Parinda (1989), 1942: A Love Story (1994), Mission Kashmir (2000), Eklavya: The Royal Guard (2007), Shikara (2020) and 12th Fail (2023). He has produced the Munna Bhai series, 3 Idiots (2009), PK (2014) and Sanju (2018). He also wrote the screenplay for 3 Idiots and served as writer, producer, director and editor on 12th Fail.
