Eight candidates for a job enter an exam room to find pencils and a piece of paper, numbered for them. The invigilator of the exam introduces the rules and then leaves. The eight turn over their papers to begin, only to find they are all blank. When one is dragged from the room for breaking the rule about not spoiling her paper, the other realize the stakes and the seriousness of the few words the invigilator said before he left – and more importantly they realize the freedom they were left by what was not said. With the 80 minute time ticking down, they try to figure out what the question is that they're trying to answer.
Exam was a film that I had not heard of but it came up in discussions on Reddit recently about single-location films. In such discussions one always has to be mindful that what one person considers an amazing film, will not necessarily work for the next person – as the weekly box-office tends to illustrate. However the one-line pitch for this film sounded so intriguing that it did appeal to me and I had hoped it would be a nicely twisty and tense little indie drama with a satisfying conclusion to pay- off the nice concept.
The problem is that the film starts by laying out this smart, tidy, clear premise that makes the viewer lean in with curiosity, but then it spends the rest of the film failing to be tidy, smart or really particularly logical at all. It starts out alright, with the characters thinking and trying to figure things out. At first you can sort of understand the logic of assuming something must be written unseen, but very quickly we are smashing lights, setting off fire alarms, torturing people and so on. To paraphrase – it escalates quickly. Problem is that it doesn't take you with it as it goes because it doesn't convince while it does it. Too much doesn't ring true (even within the film's own internal logic) and as the pressure mounts, too much that is nonsense starts to happen, meaning instead of being gripped by it, you're sitting there thinking "hang on a minute ", which is never a good thing. In the end it is understandable though because the actual conclusions are pretty weak and certainly do not satisfy to the extent that the initial idea appealed.
The acting is okay for a low budget film but too often lines on paper that need help not to sound so clunky, don't get the help they need – making them and the actor sound bad. This is too common throughout the film although in fairness the nature of the plot developments and character actions do make the material hard to sell. Overall the film fails. This is not to say that it doesn't have some entertainment value, because if you totally go with it then most of it will work fine, but the problem is that it makes it very hard to go with and it gets increasingly less engaging as it goes on – with the unconvincing ending and all the "wait, what?" moments working against it.
Exam was a film that I had not heard of but it came up in discussions on Reddit recently about single-location films. In such discussions one always has to be mindful that what one person considers an amazing film, will not necessarily work for the next person – as the weekly box-office tends to illustrate. However the one-line pitch for this film sounded so intriguing that it did appeal to me and I had hoped it would be a nicely twisty and tense little indie drama with a satisfying conclusion to pay- off the nice concept.
The problem is that the film starts by laying out this smart, tidy, clear premise that makes the viewer lean in with curiosity, but then it spends the rest of the film failing to be tidy, smart or really particularly logical at all. It starts out alright, with the characters thinking and trying to figure things out. At first you can sort of understand the logic of assuming something must be written unseen, but very quickly we are smashing lights, setting off fire alarms, torturing people and so on. To paraphrase – it escalates quickly. Problem is that it doesn't take you with it as it goes because it doesn't convince while it does it. Too much doesn't ring true (even within the film's own internal logic) and as the pressure mounts, too much that is nonsense starts to happen, meaning instead of being gripped by it, you're sitting there thinking "hang on a minute ", which is never a good thing. In the end it is understandable though because the actual conclusions are pretty weak and certainly do not satisfy to the extent that the initial idea appealed.
The acting is okay for a low budget film but too often lines on paper that need help not to sound so clunky, don't get the help they need – making them and the actor sound bad. This is too common throughout the film although in fairness the nature of the plot developments and character actions do make the material hard to sell. Overall the film fails. This is not to say that it doesn't have some entertainment value, because if you totally go with it then most of it will work fine, but the problem is that it makes it very hard to go with and it gets increasingly less engaging as it goes on – with the unconvincing ending and all the "wait, what?" moments working against it.