Movie Review - Exam

Exam (2010)

Directed by Stuart Hazeldine

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Set at some point in the near future in which some new disease is creating some issues amongst the general public, a group of eight candidates for a job enter a small room, sit down at desks, and are each given a piece of paper.  A man known only as the Invigilator (yes, it's a real word...those crazy British) enters the room and states that the group has eighty minutes to give one answer to one question.  If anyone in the group tries to communicate with either the Invigilator or the guard positioned in the room, that person will be disqualified.  If anyone spoils their paper either intentionally or accidentally, that person will be disqualified.  Leaving the room will also result in a disqualification.  With that, the Invigilator leaves the four men and four women in the room.  The group looks at their papers and soon realizes that there is nothing written on them.  What is the question?  And what is the answer?

Exam could have been filled with obnoxious philosophical mumbo jumbo, but it never really went down that path and because of that I quite enjoyed it.  While it goes on a tad too long and the end is a bit of a letdown, the film was much better than I ever could have expected.  Told essentially in real time and set in one room for the entirety of the film's 95-minute runtime, director and writer Stuart Hazeldine created a very interesting psychological experiment.  Each character has their own believable personality and each actor (none of whom I've ever seen before and most of whom have only acted on British television) brings an interesting take to the proceedings.

I can totally see how some would find this incredibly boring, but to me it was a smart "thriller" that was a rather unexpected surprise.  It's not a perfect film -- one of my big qualms is that I think it does slip into a bit of pretension by the film's end -- but it's a clever independent film that may be worth checking out on Netflix Instant Watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B