Movie Musing: Exam (2009): A Movie About an Exam

Exam (2009) is a Movie About a Cryptic Test to Choose a Candidate for a Colossal Duty

Exam is what it says it is. It’s a movie about an exam that a few candidates must sit to determine if they’re eligible for a corporate job, with the usual package of a good pay and most certainly the accompanying fringe benefits. This doesn't mean that as the viewer we’ll be sitting in complete silence watching 8 candidates sweat themselves… in complete silence. This isn't your ordinary examination.

A man introduces himself as the invigilator and states the 3 simple rules for the exam, in which only one question needs to be answered.

1. You can’t speak to the invigilator or the security guard beside the door.

2. You can’t spoil your exam paper.

3. You can’t leave the exam room within the 80 minutes.

Breaking one of these rules will result in a disqualification. But the problem is that once the exam starts the candidates notice that their exam paper is blank. Mind F***. There is no question. The exam soon turns into a quest to discover this question instead of the answer, with the candidates bending the 3 rules and learning by trial and error to locate the truth and the answer. Isn't that what all our teachers wanted? Not quite. This exam is the first of its kind. There’s talking, light smashing, urinating, punching, torture and even the use of a gun for shooting.

At the initial onset, I wondered if this movie was worth watching. Why would people place themselves in the aforementioned pain and anguish for a job at a company? Was it worth killing for? I mean, no organization can endorse the breaking of the law let alone allow the use of a gun in a civilian environment. But after watching the conclusion of the movie, it can be safely said that the stakes match the enigmatic nature of the test and throughout the movie there is the distortion of the truth and deception of the senses which is essential to keep the mystery alive.

At times, of course it is ludicrous. Some of the conversations the characters have over dissecting each other’s behavior fall into the category of cliché. There is a sense of pointlessness and futility over such extensive psyche-analysis given that it is over an exam for business employment. But over the course of the movie, facts are shed that illuminate the context for the exam and help explain the motives for the drastic actions of some of the characters, though not all. This provides a vital dose of validity for the characters to take themselves so far. Even though everything in the movie won’t fall into perfect place in the puzzle, the journey the on-screen characters take is the one shared by the audience, one filled with the unimaginable desire to find that DAMN QUESTION! And I must say the move’s finale does quench this longing of the viewers with a justifiable answer. It was there all along.

It was a simple question hanging in the air all along. The movie brought about great substance with such a limited setting and group of characters. It earned 2 nominations and a win, and one of the wins was a BAFTA, so yes, this is a must watch.