Examining Exam

A movie just bubbled to the top of my Netflix queue that I don't recall putting in there. At some point, someone must have mentioned Exam to me; maybe I read about it somewhere. But I had absolutely no idea what the movie was when it arrived, and I decided that rather than read the synopsis on the sleeve, I'd just pop the movie in and let a total surprise unfold.

So... just what is Exam? Appropriately enough, that's the question. In an non-specifically outlined future, eight people of different races and backgrounds are taken into a sterile room, apparently to interview for a job. An "invigilator" informs them of the basic rules of an exam they're about to take: they have 80 minutes; they're not allowed to attempt to interact with the people watching them on camera from somewhere outside the room, nor the armed guard that stands statue-like there inside; they each have a sheet of paper on a table before them (which has only their designations on one side, and absolutely nothing on the other) and are told they'll be disqualified if they "spoil" their paper; they also must remain in the room. There is only one question to be asked, and one answer required.

And that's it.

What follows is a character study mixed with a "locked room mystery" puzzle that feels in many ways like a spiritual successor to the movie Cube. Both are low-budget independent films. Both use rather narrowly defined ciphers as their characters. Both are about the interpersonal meltdowns between the characters. Both are about trying to reason out of a science-fiction tinged trap.

But while Exam begins in rather intriguing fashion, it ends up being an inferior effort to Cube. In a story where all you have to go on is the immediate motivations of the characters, understanding and believing those motivations is key. Cube handles this by putting them in a deadly prison; the audience doesn't really need to know anything to understand or contextualize the desire to escape. But Exam is about a job interview. The movie wants to be only about the mystery, and thus provides no real names for the characters, threadbare explanation of the job they're "interviewing" for, and only occasional context for why the position (whatever it is -- that's rather vague too) would be so important to any of them as to subject themselves to such a strange set of circumstances.

Consequently, while the opening of the film is admittedly quite intriguing, it ultimately begins to come unraveled the more extreme the behaviors of the characters gets. It all unfolds in real time, and the stakes don't seem nearly high enough to explain the lengths these characters end up going to. Many of the characters also peak too early, going to crazy extremes and committing inappropriate acts, but then having to somehow recover from that to still be a presence in the story -- something they really can't do.

Director Stuart Hazeldine, who wrote the script along with Simon Garrity, does have some obvious filmmaking skills. He keeps the pace moving and the environment fresh, even though the entire movie is set inside a single room. He also coaxes earnest performances from his cast of unknown actors. But he didn't arm himself with an entirely credible script, and the ending does nothing to resolve any questions, or to even make sense of it all.

I'd rate the movie a C+. If you're a huge fan of Cube, you may want to check it out. The rest of you would probably find it too overwrought.